BRITAIN'S VITAL STATISTICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7765, 24 July 1903, Page 2

BRITAIN'S VITAL STATISTICS.

HEALTHIEST AND DEADLIEST

PLACES IN ENGLAND.

Heart-burnings will ensue -from the Re--, gistrar-General's annual summary of "Births, deaths, aud causes of death in London and other large towns, 1902." Far the Registrar, in his relentless, statistical way, has weighed tlie health and virtue^of these towns, and many are found wanting.

The deadliest town in the land is Mer-thyr-Tydvil, where people die half as fast again us in the country as a whole. Its infomtile mortality (185 die out of every thousand born) is second only to that of Preston. Merthyr-Tydvil had ten cases of small pox, for fever it was the worst town in the country but three (Ipswich, Grimsby and Birkenhead), for diarrhoea the worst but seven, and tor "deaths by violence" it was absolutely supreme. The second deadliest town is Liverpool, and -the next deadliest Wigan, Manchester, Mkldlesborough, Burnley, Hanley, Bootle and St Helens, and Newcastlc-ob-Tyne, Oldham, Preston, South Shields, Rhondda, Stockport, Sunderland and Birmingham are thoroughly bad in thia relation. The healthiest of seventy-six great towns in England and Wales is Hornsey, where the death-rate is only 9.80 per 1000. This is much better than the wlnSle of England and Wales, whose death-rate is 16.28, and better even than the smaller towns and rural districts, whose rate is 14.80. Other most healthy great towns Are Walthamstow, Leyton, East Ham, Willesden, and Croydon ; and the healthiest seaside towns of size are Bournemouth (10.05), Hastings (13.91), Yarmouth (15.50), and Brighton (15.59). London cannot be called healthy, for its rate is 18.64) which is well above the average, amd places the metropolis forty-eighth down the list. The worst towns for measles were Burnley, Bristol, Barrow and Cardiff, and for scarlet fever West Bromwich, Burnley, Bolton, St Helens and Wigan. Diphtheria was worst in Hanley, Rhondda and Middlesborough, and w^hooping-cough in. South Shields and Barrow.

In London itself, the healthiest suburbs are Hampstead (10.8— a shade below Hornsey), Stoke Newingfcon (13.4), Wandsworth (13.5), Lewisham (13.6), Paddington (14.6). The worst places to live in are Finsbury, Southwark, Holborn, Bermondsey, Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, Stepney and the City.

The year' was a healthy one for London, and disease was much below the average, excepting small-pox, cancer, suicide and homicide. There were 329 deaths in the streets from horses and vehicles, 3410 ffom other violence, 535 suicides, 71 Tiomicides and 7 executions.

The death-rato in Bombay was 62.2 per 1000, Paris 18.4, Vienna, 19.4, and St Petersburg 23.