A Letter to the Parishioners of Fulham

Transcribed from the 1849 Lavis edition by David Price. Many thanks to the British Library for making their copy available.
BY THE REV. R. G. BAKER, M.A. VICAR.
SOLD BY LAVIS, FULHAM; WILSON, WALHAM GREEN; BARKER, NORTH END 1849.
Price Fourpence .
LONDON: R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.
Fulham Vicarage, 29 th Oct. 1849.
My dear Parishioners,
The Cholera has visited Fulham the second time. When it prevailed in 1832, it was always understood that two deaths only in this parish were to be traced to that fearful pestilence as their cause. But in the nine weeks closing on the 8th instant, not only had the mortality exceeded fourfold the average of the same period for the five preceding years, but in this unusual number of 127 deaths, no fewer than 56 were certified to the registrar, by the medical practitioners who attended the cases, as having arisen from cholera. In 35 instances, the previous illness did not exceed twenty-four hours; and in 18 of them, it was less than twelve hours.
There is another striking circumstance which attended our recent visitation. Of the deaths registered within this short and fatal period, it is recorded that
Thus it appears that 58 of these deaths, a number not far removed from one moiety of the whole, occurred within those ages which are commonly considered the least susceptible of the influences which shorten life. The year was passed below which the highest range of infantine mortality prevails: for it is well known that in England at large, one quarter of the children born, and in some of the larger towns one half of them, die before they attain their fifth year. Nor had the period of life arrived when the growing infirmities, or the confirmed chronic diseases of extreme old age bring so many to the grave. Fifty-eight of our fellow-parishioners were carried off in nine weeks, between five years old and fifty-five; and in some of the most distressing instances, those constitutions gave way the most rapidly which appeared the healthiest and the hardiest of the neighbourhood.