Rent.Number of
Families.
Number of
Children
born.
Number
Dead.
Approximate
Death-rate.
Per Cent.
Over 6/61272912
6/0 to 6/6739717
Less than 6/012753040

(See [Appendix A, p. 42].)

When, however, the amount paid in rent is the basis of the arrangement, the death-rate rises from 12 per cent. to 40 per cent. as the rent gets less.

It is hardly necessary to point out that the death-rate is a rough-and-ready test, and not to be considered as a close indication. If it were practicable to use the general health of those alive as well as the death-rate, it would be far better. Also, of course, no one of the three arrangements is independent of the other two. Moreover, the numbers are few. The results of the analysis, however, though proving nothing, were considered interesting enough to encourage the making of the same analysis of thirty-nine cases of families with three or more children, taken from the records of the weighing-room at Moffat’s Institute (see p. 28). The two lists were kept separate, as the cases at Moffat’s Institute had been passed by no doctor, and hereditary disease may be considered to be more rampant among them. Added to this the wages are, on the whole, lower than the wages of families within the limits of the investigation.

It is curious that the death-rate in the second table for families paying under 6s. rent is much the same as it is in the first. The great difference between the two tables lies in the far larger death-rate in families paying over 6s. rent shown in the second table, where disease and insecurity and poverty were certainly greater factors.

Thirty-nine Families with Three or More Children taken from without the Investigation.

Total of 223 children; 70 dead; death-rate, 31·3.

Arranged according to Number in Family.