98 TYPHOID IX HOBART AND MELBOURNE, 



Hobart than in Melbourne, owing of course to the smallness 

 of the population not allowing of a correct average being 

 easily got. But it has further to be noted, that with all the 

 fluctuations the rate for Hobart has never come so low as 

 that which has been found in Melbourne for the last two 

 years, and notably in 1901. It is manifest from the fact 

 that the mortality has been so much below the average in 

 both places, that general conditions have on the whole been 

 favourable during the last three years. The improvement in 

 the typhoid mortality rate has doubtless been in great 

 measure owing to advances in sanitation, better guarding of 

 milk and water supplies, better cleansing of streets, lanes, 

 and house surroundings, more care in the disinfection and 

 ultimate disposal of night soil, and possibly other things not 

 so obvious. But things being equal in all these respects, it 

 might fairly have been expected that in Hobart the swing of 

 the pendulum would have been more distinct with the small 

 population than in Melbourne with the large. It might 

 have been expected that, in one or other of these favourable 

 years, the rate would by chance have fallen lower than in 

 Melbourne, just as it was lower in 1893, than in any of the 

 earlier years of the period, and far higher in 1891 and 1898 

 than at any time in the period. Many conditions being the 

 same in both places, it seems as if there had been something 

 at work in Melbourne of a special kind, not operative in the 

 Tasmanian capital. It is not easy to think of anything 

 greatly different in the two places but the drainage system 

 adopted in the one and not in the other. Things being equal 

 the mortality ought to be lower in Hobart, with its excellent 

 undulating site, and its comparatively small and scattered 

 population. 



It is worth making a further comparison, viz., between Mel- 

 bourne and the rest of the State of Victoria, to see whether 

 it favours this view : — 



Per 1,000 of Population. 



