You think it necessary, in order to ascertain the causes of death with correctness, to go to the spot and ascertain the fact on the spot?—Yes: I get much more correct information in that way than from parties calling upon me.
If you were to remain at your desk, without local inquiry, do you conceive your registration would be at all correct, or would it not be widely different from the fact?—I do not think it would be correct. I think in every case of death the registrar ought to go to the house, not only for the purpose of registering the death, but that there ought to be some means of ascertaining from what cause the party died; that the body ought to be seen by the registrar, or some authorized person, or that it should be compulsory to produce a medical certificate, certifying the precise cause of death. The searchers, who were two women, appointed in open vestry, under an old Act of Parliament, to call and investigate every case of death that occurred, and to examine the body and see that the party had come fairly by his or her death, have been done away with since the passing of the Registration Act, and there is now no means of ascertaining how the party has met with his death.
Can you state to the Commissioners instances of error which you have obviated or prevented by going and inquiring upon the spot, that would have occurred by your not going?—I cannot mention individual cases; but it has come under my knowledge that parties have called upon me to register a death, and when I have asked the cause they have said, “I do not exactly know what it was, I believe it was a fever, or something of that kind.” I have said, “I must trouble you to get me a medical certificate, or I will call at the house.” I have gone to the house, and found it widely different in many cases from the statement they gave to me, from error on their parts.
Are you satisfied from the experience of your office, though it has been short, that there can be no correct registration without examination on the spot, and a sight of the body?—I think so; it would entail upon the registrars a very arduous and a very unpleasant office, but that the registration would be more perfect, and it would be a check upon crime, I have very little doubt.
Do you find any obstruction given on the part of the poorer classes to your going to the spot and making inquiries?—Not the slightest. My opinion is that the poorer classes pay more attention to the registration than the middling classes.
Have you met with any manifestation of prejudice or bad feeling from the poorer classes?—No, not the slightest, but really a wish that the registration should be effective.
They do not view the registrar as an intrusive officer?—Not in the least.
In the worst conditioned places the only persons who are seen as public officers are policemen and the rate-collectors or the tax-gatherers. When commissioners of inquiry have been seen taking notes in them, the popular impression was that they were tax-gatherers, an impression which it required some trouble to remove. In a little time the officer of health would be most popular and would exercise extensive and beneficial influence. The practical evidence of the registrars was of an uniform tenor, establishing, as far as actual experience may establish, not only the acceptability of the more elevated and extensive service proposed, but that it must develope most important civil as well as medical facts, the correct knowledge of which is necessary for the relief of the most afflicted portions of the population.
Jurisprudential value of the appointment of Officers of Health.
§ 202. In the lamentable state of the population, which in England and Wales produces annually upwards of 700 committals to prison for crimes of passion, and of these 450 for murder, manslaughter, and attempts upon life, it may scarcely be deemed necessary to adduce many particular examples of the importance of the extraordinary jurisprudential services and securities for life to the community obtainable by the exercise in all cases of the ordinary functions of the verification, as far as may be, of the fact as well as the cause of death. On examining the grounds of the fears of life and suspicions of the poorer classes, inhabiting the worst conditioned districts, it is evident that obstructions to crime, or safeguards, which are carefully preserved in the well regulated communities (marked by security of life and the rarity of crimes of violence) are here absent, and that wide openings are left for the escape of the darkest crimes. Had there been an officer of public health, and a verification of the cause of death by him on inspection, as at Geneva, Munich, or other towns on the continent, and inquiry for registration of the causes of death, it is probable that, with the certainty of such inspection, the murders of the children at Stockport or at Little Bolton would not have been attempted; or, if perpetrated, they might have been detected in the first case. The whole class of murders verified on examination after disinterment may be cited as coming within the same category. The crime of burking, which appears to have originated in Scotland, and was extended to England, could scarcely have been attempted systematically, except under the temptation of the absence of such a security; and with such service as that proposed, it is highly improbable that it could have been carried on to the extent there is reason to believe it was.