112 



persons at all ages (table G) shows in every case a consider- 

 able advantage on the side of the rural districts, to the extent 

 of 2473 per cent.* for infants under 1 year ; 36 54 per cent, for 

 children up to 10, and 37'25 for all ages above. For all ages, the 

 mortality throughout the colony was 13'78 ; in Hobart district, 

 20'49 ; in Launceston 23'26 ; in the Urban Districts, 21-39 ; in 

 the Eural, 9'24. These figures show a considerable excess at 

 Launceston ; but it would be wrong to conclude upon this 

 ground alone that the mortality is greater in the town itself 

 than in Hobart Town. For the district of Hobart 

 included (Feby., 1870) a suburban population of 5912, 

 in which the rate of mortality was less than in the 

 city ; while, if my estimate be correct, the suburban popu- 

 lation in the Launceston district amounted to no more 

 than 1500 ; so that the proportion of the suburban to the 

 urban population was, in Hobart district, about 24 per cent. ; 

 in Launceston about 12. The suburban, or more healthy 

 pojiulation being thus smaller in the district of Launceston, 

 the mortality for the whole registration district might natu- 

 rally be expected to be somewhat greater. In Victoria in 

 1873 the urban rate was 19-41 per 1,000 ; the rural 9-14; in 

 N. S. Wales in 1872,— Svdnev, 22-69 ; suburbs, 14-48 ; rural, 

 12-32. In England (1871) the general rate being 22-6 per 

 1000, the minimum of the country rates was 17 '3. In Scot- 

 land, according to the Eegistrar-General's reports, the rates 

 in 1870 were : — Principal towns, 27-03; large towns, 25-24; 

 small towns, 22-49 ; and rural districts, 17-95. The excess in 

 the urban rate as compared with the rural would, therefore, 

 be — in Tasmania, 61-37 per cent. ; in Victoria, 52-91 ; and 

 as between Sydney and the rural districts of New 

 South Wales the excess was 56 23 per cent. Assum- 

 ing the rate for the larger towns in Scotland to be 

 about 26 per 1000, the excess in the mortality over the 

 rural districts would be 30*96 per cent. The difference in the 

 rate of mortality between the most and least healthy counties 

 in England in 1871 was 11-2 per 1000, or 30-30 per cent. ; the 

 highest rate being 28 5 in Durham; the lowest 17-3 in the 

 extra-metropolitan parts of Surrey and Kent. Between the 

 highest death rate of the large towns in Great Britain in that 

 year (being 365 in Sunderland), and the lowest countv rate 

 (17 3), the difference was 19-2 per 1000, or 52-60 per cent. 

 An epidemic of small-pox prevailed in Sunderland and several 

 other large towns, increasing the rate of mortality, which in 

 cities so much more populous than our own chief towns, ought 

 always, according to the well-ascertained relation between 

 density of population and disease, to be far greater. Tet, not- 



* Taking the rate for the whole Colony as the standard of comparison. 



