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diseases - happily as yet unknown in Tasmania . The
average per million inhabitants of deaths in London is,
according to the admirab le tables by Dr Guy of King 's
College in the Statistical Journal for December 1855,
24 ,883. The proportion per mi llion for Hobarton etc.
would be about 32,712 or 7, 829 deaths more per mil lion .
he considered was startling enough to arouse the most apathetic to
. (
action.
Hall then examined the mortality of a rural district - the Huon -
-
to prove that the country mortality was very much less proportionately, and
that the Tasmanian climate was even more favorab le to health than the best
districts of England;
indeed, the rate of mortality in rural areas was
14 per thousand as compared with 37 per 1000 for Hobarton and Launceston .
Therefore , at least 500 lives in these two towns were sacrificed in 1855
through neglect of sanitary precautions .
extreme old age followed.
Some remarkab le instances of
From these facts it is fair to infer that longevity in
Tasmania has as high, if not a higher range than in England .
Convicts , he found, died at the rate of 11 per 1,000, whilst the free
population of the same age in Hobarton died at the rate of 24 1;2 per
1,000 . Deaths of children in the convict nurseries he was glad to show
had decreased considerably, though still twice as great as those of the
same age in the district at large.
Having been the means of drawing pub lic attention to the
excessive mortality amongst this class of the population
and having demonstrated that it could be reduced, I have
a right to feel an honest pride that my agitation of the
subject has resulted in so large a saving of human life.
Still there is but little to boast of, and a wide scope
for further improvement .
Hall concluded 'Part Thr ee' with a classified table of the
38 deaths for 1855 in the Orphan School , and an investigation into the
who le economy of that institution, a subj ect to which he had not previous ly
referred.
This was his ''coup de grace" , the effects of which were felt by
many people in the months to come .
Thirty-eight deaths of children ab ove
one, and at and under three years of age , out of 57 admitted anQ 57
remaining for 1854, or a total of 114 in 1855 , was anything but creditab le
to colonial management, when compared with deaths of children in similar
circumstances in overseas institutions .
Surely it required a searching enquiry to ascertain why
children of the same age, with so many advantages in their
favour, should die in the Orphan School at a ratio nearly
six times greater than children do amongst the popu lation
outside of that establishment .