greatest, there was a fall of forty-six in the
ten thousand deaths (ascribed to improved
water supply). In the central districts—to
which Saint Giles's belongs—the fall in the
mortality was fourteen in the ten thousand;
but in Saint Giles's the fall that represented
progress was no more than three. There was
no special epidemic to account for this, only
the customary wretchedness.

Such a fact prompts us to ask what are
the diseases that produce this excess of
mortality. It is found that of diseases called
zymotic—chiefly in the form of whooping-
cough and measles—death was the result in
an average of five cases instead of the usual
four. Scrofulous diseases—chiefly in the form
of consumption and water on the brain, and
diseases of the brain and nerves—chiefly in
the form of convulsions of children—show
similar excess of mortality; and the diseases
of the breathing apparatus—chiefly
bronchitis and pneumonia—killed four where in
London generally they kill three. There is
a great excess also of deaths by the premature
birth and debility of infants. The
especial sufferers, in every case, are the
children. Contagion has little to do with
the cause of these fatal disorders. They are
diseases clearly traceable here to bad water,
and yet more emphatically to bad air.

Be it remembered also, that the calculations
just given relate to the whole health
district of Saint Giles and Bloomsbury, within
which there is Saint George's Bloomsbury,
with a death rate only half that of Saint
Giles's South. In Saint Giles's South the
death rate by those zymotic diseases which
are a sure sign of unwholesomeness, is three
times greater than it is in Bloomsbury. Of
ten thousand people there would have died
last year in Bloomsbury one hundred and
eighty-four; in North Saint Giles's, two
hundred and eighty-eight; in South Saint Giles's,
three hundred and sixty-four!

The Medical Health Officer proceeds in his
report to subdivide his district into ten
distinct localities, and to make elaborate
comparisons full of suggestion in their issue.
Thus, it appears that death by consumption
was last year in the Bedford Square region
nine per cent. of the total mortality, in
Northern Drury Lane thirty per cent., and,
what we might not have expected, twenty
per cent. in Russell Square. In the lodging
houses, consumption is found to be the most
fatal disease. Of other fatal disease in the
lungs, fourteen died last year in the Russell
Square locality, to twenty-two in that of
Bedford Square, and two-and-thirty in Church
Lane. As these numbers relate only to
limited districts for a single year, they are to
be received, of course, with great reserve;
but, in evidence of the general fact that over-
crowding is one of the main causes of the
excess of deaths in the whole district, Doctor
Buchanan presents, side by side, two tables
which speak with a painful eloquence. He
compares Little Coram Street, a street of far
the most part very poor people, in which the
mortality is at the usual high average of the
surrounding district, with Dudley Street,
Seven Dials. Both are streets of seven-
roomed houses, none of them common lodging
houses.

In Dudley Street there are eighty-two
houses, and one thousand seven hundred and
twenty men, women, and children. In Little
Coram Street there are thirty-three houses
and three hundred and seventy men, women,
and children. The proportion of children in
each street happens to be exactly the same,
forty-four per cent.

In Dudley Street there is an average of
twenty-one persons; but, in Little Coram
Street, the average is only eleven persons to a
house. Of the houses in Dudley Street, one
half are dirty and the kitchens are closely
tenanted; the houses in Little Coram Street
are good and clean.

What follows? There died last year in
Dudley Street a proportion of thirty-eight
people to the thousand; but, in Little Coram
Street, not thirty. Of those who died in
Dudley Street the children under five years
old bore a proportion of fifty-eight to the
hundred, in Little Coram Street but twenty-
seven to the hundred; the proportion of
deaths among little children in the street
little more than half as crowded as the other,
was even less than half as great. Deaths
from zymotic disease in Dudley Street were
more than twice as many as are usual in
London, but in Little Coram Street there was
not one.

The report goes on to tell of work that is
now being done. What we have learnt from
it will leave us plenty of room to imagine
something of the work that has yet even to
be begun.

Early in December will be published, price Threepence,
stamped Fourpence,
                     A HOUSE TO LET,
                            forming
             THE CHRISTMAS NUMBER
Of HOUSEHOLD WORDS; and containing Thirty-six
Pages, or the amount of One regular Number and a Half.

             MR. CHARLES DICKENS'S
                          READINGS.
MR. CHARLES DICKENS will read at SOUTHAMPTON on
the 9th and 10th of November; at PORTSMOUTH on the
llth; and at BRIGHTON on the 12th and 13th of
November;
WHICH WILL TERMINATE THE SERIES OF READINGS.