The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-08 00:00:00

THE PUBLIC HEALTH,

(From the Registrar-General's Weekly Return)
_ _ _

In the week that ended on Saturday Aug. 4, the
births registered in London and 12 other large
towns of the United Kingdom were 4,086 ; the
deaths registered, 4,499. The annual rate of mor-
tality was 38 per 1,000 persons living.
In London the births of 1,049 boys and 939 girls,
in all 1,988 children, were registered in the week.
In the corresponding week of ten years 1856-65 the
average number, corrected for increase of popula-
tion, was 1,914.
The deaths registered in London during the week
were 2,661. It was the 31st week of the year, and
the average number of deaths for that week is, with
a correction for increase of population, 1,395. The
deaths in the present return exceed the estimated
number by 1,266.
There is a slight increase in the high rate of mor-
tality that ruled in the previous week. 1,053 per-
sons died of cholera, 354 of diarrhoea, making 1,407
deaths from both forms of disease.
The deaths returned in the four last weeks from
cholera were 32, 346, 904, and 1,053 ; from diarrhoea,
150, 221, 347, 354. The deaths from cholera ex-
ceed by 149 the deaths in the previous week ; the
excess in the total deaths is only 61.

Of cholera and diarrhoea 573 children under five
years, 114 boys and girls of the age of five to ten ;
79 of the age 10-to 20 ; 255 men and women of the
age 20 to 40 ; 248 of the age 40 to 60 ; 127 of the
age 60 to 80 ; and 11 old people of 80 and upwards.
Deaths from diarrhoea or cholera in small num-
bers occurred all over the London districts ; in
Kensington, Marylebone, Pancras, Islington, Hol-
born, the numbers were considerable. In the West
districts of London 12 persons died of cholera ; in
the North districts 46 (including 19 in Islington,
20 in Hackney) ; in the Central districts 31, in-
cluding 12 in St. Botolph ; in the South district 47,
including 21 in Deptford and Greenwich ; while in
the East districts 916 persons died of unequivocal
cholera. Only 16 of the deaths from cholera occurred
in one of the largest of the East districts, Shore-
ditch. The violence of the attack is still expended
on Bethnal-green, Whitechapel, St. George-in-the-
East, Stepney, Mile-end Old-town, and Poplar,
including Bow. There is some subsidence in Pop-
lar and Stepney, but increased virulence in Beth-
nal-green and Whitechapel. The attack has been
circumscribed by nearly the same lines for three
' weeks in succession. This is no accident ; the
phenomena are due to some specific cause.
These violent outbreaks are almost invariably in
England the result of contamination of the waters;
and tho question is subsequently noticed. Upon
the assumption that the waters were at some time
impure, there is this further aggravation that in the
lower districts the water is not carried away.- "It
is unfortunately," says Mr. Bazalgette, " the locality
where our main drainage works are not complete."
A temporary pumping station is to be erected forth-
with, and will be in operation in about three weeks
at Abbey Mills.

The East London waters have been analyzed by
Dr. Frankland, whose report is reassuring ; and Mr.
Greaves, the engineer, is fully alive to the extreme
importance of pure water at the present moment.
The waters of shallow wells and pumps are polluted ;
and in this crisis the health of London is very much
in the hands of our hydraulic engineers.
The local authorities, who had not instituted
generally house-to-house viitation, are now on the
alert. The sympathy of the whole nation with the
sufferers has been touchingly expressed by her Ma-
jesty, and has been proclaimed by the Prime Minis-
ter. :Under these auspices, and with the intelligent
exertions of the people themselves, we may hope ere
long to see the destructive progress of the plague
stayed.
The annual rate of mortality last week was 45 per
1,000 in London, 23 in Edinburgh, and 20 iu Dub-
lin ; 22 in Bristol, 22 in Birmingham, 53 in Liver-
pool, 38 in Manchester, 30 in Salford, 24 in Sheffield,
34 in Leeds, 24 in Hull, 41 in Newcastle-upon-
Tyne, and 28 in Glasgow. The rate in Vienna was
33 per 1,000 during the week ending the 21st ult.,
when the temperature was 18.2 deg. Fahrenheit
higher than in the same week in London, where the
rate was 31 per 1,000.

At the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, the mean
height of the barometer in the week was 29.556 in.
The barometrical reading increased from 29-37 in.
on Sunday to 29.77 in. on Wednesday. The mean
temperature of the air in the week was 58.8 deg.,
which is 3.6 deg. below the average of the same
week in 50 years as determined by Mr. Glaisher).
The highest day temperature was 72.9 deg., on
Friday. Thelowest night temperature was 46.0 deg.
on Tuesday. The entire range of temperature in
the week was, therefore, 26.9 deg. The mean of the
highest temperatures of the water of the Thames was
62.6 deg. ; that of the lowest was 61.9 deg. The
difference between the mean dew-point tempera-
ture and air temperature was 6.7 deg. The mean
degree of humidity of the air was 79, complete satu-
ration being represented by 100. Rain fell to the
amount of 0.51 in.

THE WATER SUPPLY OF THE EAST DISTRICTS.

The cause of the epidemic of cholera consists, as
is well known now, of a zymotic matter in various
degrees of activity all over the London area, affect-
ing the people in various ways, through air, contact,
and water. Hitherto, in all great outbreaks here,
the cholerine, which this stuff may be called, has
been distributed chiefly through water, as was shown
in the Registrar-General's reports on the previous
epidemics.

When it was observed, therefore, that the present
fatal explosion of cholera fell in the east districts in
the first week suspicion was roused, and that was
strengthened by the observations of the week ending
July 28th, and by personal inspection, which
showed that the attacks were diffused over a wide
area, among many people in bad hygienic condi-
tions, and also among many in ordinary conditions,
often well to do, living in streets by no means so
poor or so dirty as the streets of the south and
of other regions of London. The population was
principally in the port of London, but not exclu-
sively; and little more exposed to infection than
the districts along the south side of the Thames,
which had formerly been decimated by cholera,
when the water supply on that side was polluted.
The air of East London is often charged with im-
purities, which are undoubtedly noxious ; and so
are other parts ; but any impurity of the air is ra-
pidly diffused all over London.

Nearly all of the infected districts are supplied by
its
one water company, which now derives its water, not
as was stated last week, at Lea-bridge, where
filtering beds lie out about 21 miles higher up the
river, and above Tottenham. As far as Enfield the
river is protected from sewage by an interceptini
drain ; but it receives the drainage of all the coun-
try and towns in its basin.*
'The New River takes a large portion of its supply
higher up the Lea, and engages to deodorize the
sewage of Hertford before it is discharged into the
water. There is no such protection against the
sewage of Ware. Upon the whole, the upper
waters of the tribUtary Lea are not worse than the
waters of the Thames, which are exposed to similar
contaminations ; and the filtering arrangements of
the East London Company are elaborate, and pro-
bably as effective as those of the Thames companies.
The 13 filter beds at Leabridge cover au area of 12
acres. A part of the water is distributed from the
well of those beds by the most powerful engine of
the company; the rest of the filtered water is car-
ried three miles down to a covered reservoir of about
2i acres at Old Ford, where it is distributed over
the area now suffering so much from cholera. The
water in this reservoir looks perfectly pure. Close
by its side, which is well-built flows the tidal end
of the Lea, black and full of
the foulest impurities.
The company in its first years drew its waters
mainly from the Lea at this point, and the first

* Dr. Radcliffe has remarked that the Cobbin, which
flows into the Lea through Waltham Abbey, drains Epping,
where the late small outbreak of cholera, -was observed.
That stream is said to be dry.