( XIV ) 
STATE OF THE PUBLIC HEALTH. 
1st Quarter. — The deaths greatly exceeded the average number. 
Seldom has a winter been more fatal ; for 143,030 deaths — 1572 
a day — were registered in ninety-one days, including the additional 
day of leap year, for which due correction is made. The mortality 
was at the rate of 2*773 per cent. ; whereas the average of the 
season in the preceding ten years was 2-490 per cent. ; thus the 
rate was nearly 28 instead of 25 in 1000. 14,698 persons died in 
excess of the average number. Since 1842 it is only in the two 
winters (1847-48) after the potato failure, and in the winter of the 
Crimean war (1855), that the country has experienced any higher 
rates of mortality. The winter death-rate per 1000 was 2-850, and 
2-794 in the former years, 2-910 in 1855, and 2-773 in 1864. 
London suffered to an extraordinary extent, and is accountable for 
a large share of the increase. The average annual rate of the 
winter quarter in London is 2-577 per cent., but in the last winter 
quarter the rate becomes 3-088, or "511 above the average. The 
funerals increased in the proportion of five to six. 
2nd Quarter. — The deaths which were registered in the quarter 
that ended on June 30 amounted to 116,899. The number is above 
the average of the deaths in the months of April, May, and June ; 
but it is less than the number of deaths which were registered in 
the corresponding quarter of the previous year, and less by 26,131 
than the deaths in the three first fatal winter months of this year. 
Then 1572 deaths were registered daily ; in the present quarter the 
daily deaths have been 1284. The mortality has been at the rate 
of 2-260 in 100 living, or -073 above the average of the spring- 
quarters of the previous ten years. The mortality of the town 
populations has been at the rate of 2-369, and of the country popu- 
lations 2*110 per cent.: thus the towns lost 18,392 lives, and the 
country 10,000 lives, in excess of the deaths which would have been 
registered had the mortality been at the rate prevailing in the least 
unhealthy districts of England and Wales. As a general rule the 
three spring months, April, May, June, are healthier than winter, 
and somewhat less healthy than the summer in ordinary years. 
They express very closely the average mortality of the year. Thus 
the average annual mortality per cent, in ten years (1854-63) was 
2-214, and in the ten springs of those years, 2-187; it was less in 
the spring quarters by--027. 
