The popular idea about the extraordinary number of deaths in
the first quarter of this year was correct. The Registrar-General
4.4t0fi thnt `4 CAM* in the death-rate last quarter upon the average rate in the first three months of the ten previous years was equal to 8.6 per cent. in the urban, and to 16.8 per cent. in the rural population," the former numbering thirteen and a half millions and the latter ten millions. The difference between town and country is probably due to the difference of means to buy firing, owing to the low rate of wages prevalent in the rural districts. " In evidence of the direct influence of temperature, it may be noticed that the rate of mortality in the eighteen towns averaged 33-8 per 1,000 in the first two weeks of the year under the influence of the severe weather at the end of December, declined to 26.2 in the three following weeks in consequence of the high temperature in January, and rose again to 28-7 during the eight cold weeks that closed the quarter." It is also true that the mortality was most marked among the aged, the deaths of persons over 60 in the quarter exceeding by forty-seven per cent. the deaths in the same quarter of 1872, when the temperature was high. And yet there are men who will read that, and chatter about " fine bracing weather " all the same.
Previous page
