274 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xvm. 



diagram in any other way, and it is strikingly corrobo- 

 rated by a diagram of infant mortality in London and in 

 England which I laid before the Royal Commission, and 

 which I here reproduce (No. X.). The early part of 

 this diagram is from a table calculated by Dr. Farr from 

 all the materials available in the Bills of Mortality; and 

 it shows for each twenty years the marvellous diminu- 

 tion in infant mortality during the hundred years from 

 1730 to 1830, proving that there was some continuous 

 beneficial change in the conditions of life. The ma- 

 terials for a continuation of the diagram are not given by 

 the Registrar-General in the case of London, and I have 

 had to calculate them for England. But from 1840 to 

 1890 we find a very slight fall, both in the death-rate 

 under five years and under one year for England, and 

 under one year for London, although both are still far 

 too high, as indicated by the fact that in St. Saviour's it 

 is 213, and in Hampstead only 123 per 1000 births. 

 There appear to have been some causes which checked 

 the dimunition in London after 1840, then produced an 

 actual rise from 1860 to 1870, followed by a slight but 

 continuous fall since. The check to the dimunition of 

 the infant death-rate is sufficiently accounted for by that 

 extremely rapid growth of London by immigration 

 which followed the introduction of railways, and which 

 would appreciably increase the child-population (by im- 

 migration of families) in proportion to the births. The 

 rise from 1860 to 1870 exactly corresponds to the rise 

 in Leicester, and to the strict enforcement of infant vac- 

 cination, which was continuously high during this 

 period; while the steady fall since corresponds also to 

 that continuous fall in the vaccination rate due to a 



