The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-19 00:00:00

THE

'UBLIC

TH.

The following is the weekly return of the Regis-
trar-General of births and deaths in London and in
12 other large towns of the United Kingdom :
General Register-office, Somerset-house, Dec. 17.
In the week that ended on Saturday, December
15, the births registered in London and 12 other
large towns of the United Kingdom were 4,379 ;
the deaths registered 3,028. The annual rate of
mortality was 26 per 1,000 persons living.
In London the births of 1,029 boys and 1,045
girls, in all 2,074 children, were registered in the
week. In the corresponding weeks of ten years
1856-65 the average number, corrected for increase

of population, was 2,084.
The deaths registered in London during the week
were 1,389. It was the 50th week of the year, and
the average number of deaths for that week
is, with a correction for increase of population,
1,469. The deaths in the present return are less
by 80 than the estimated number.
Two cases of cholera and 25 of diarrhce i were
registered last week.
A boiler maker, aged 18 years, died Dec. 9 of
bronchitis after cholera, at 17, Orchard-street,
Woolwich. _

The son of a silk dyer, aged one year, died Dec
10 of cholera (24 hours), at 17, Fleet-street, Beth-
nal-green.

Although the epidemic has subsided, isolated cases
still demand the vigilant attention of the authorities.
This is one of the lessons of the year, for while
cholera raged between the Tower, the Isle of Dogs,
and Victoria Park—over the area traversed by the
Blackwall Railway, and the Great Eastern Railway
as far as Stratford and West Ham—among a popu-
lation in uninterrupted communication, through
lines of streets, the Regent's Canal, and the Thames,
with the rest of London and the surrounding dis-
tricts, to which many of the infected persons living
in the east of London fled, the conflagration was
strictly circumscribed within well-defined bounds.
The fierceness of the disease extended thus far and
no further, although the movements of the people
were as free as air. The futility of quarantine lines
is so well known that their establishment was never
proposed in London. The supply of impure water
was at once arrested ; the water engineers grew care-
ful; the sewage was now less inefficient than it had
ever been before, for South London was drained; the
health officers became vigilant; premonitory diarrhoea
was treated; every case as it occurred was published
to the world, and the cholera excreta were destroyed
by carbolic acid and other disinfectants. Thedisease
was communicated by contact with the poison in a
few cases, but its general diffusion was stopped.

This is the secret of the success of London in con-
trolling an epidemic that during the year has been
so fatal in continental cities.

The annual rate of mortality last week was 24 per
1,000 in London, 33 in Edinburgh, and 26 in Dub-
lin; 20 in Bristol, 21 in Birmingham, 32 in Liver-
pDol, 28 in Manchester, 27 in Salford, 29 in Shef-
field, 24 in Leeds, 19 in Hull, 41 in Newcastle-upon-
Tyne, and 31 in Glasgow. The rate in Vienna was
28 per 1,000 during the week ending the Ist inst.,
when the temperature was 2.9 deg. Fahrenheit
lower than in the same week in London, where the
rate was 25 per 1,000.

At the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, the mean
height of the barometer in the week was 29.678 in.
The barometrical reading decreased from 30.34 in.
on Sunday to 29.19 in. on Saturday. The mean
temperature of the air in the week was 43.4 deg.,
which is 2.7 above the average of the same week in
50 years (as determined by Mr. Glaisher). The
highest day temperature was 55 deg., on Thurs-
day. The lowest night temperature was 28.6 deg.,
on Sunday. The entire range of temperature in
the week was, therefore, 26.4 deg. The mean of
the highest temperatures of the water of the Thames
was 43.7 deg. ; that of the lowest was 42.1 deg.
The difference between the mean dew-point tem-
perature and air temperature was 2.7 deg. The
mean degree of humidity of the air was 90, com-
plete saturation being represented by 100. Rain
fell to the amount of 0-60 in. The general direc-
tion of the wind was south-west. Acclrding to a
return furnished by the engineer of the Metropoli-
tan Board of Works, the average daily quantity of
sewage pumped into the river Thames at the south-
er❑ outfall works, Crossness, was 208,033 cubic
metres.