WCP3047

[1]

National Liberal Club,

Whitehall Place, S.W.

Dec[ember]. 9^th [1897]

My Dear Prof. Wallace,

I have done what I could, but I fear I have been unable to give you precisely what you require.

I am not able to quote from the Registrar Guard’s Annual Summary for London ^{for 1884} because we have only within the last two years had these papers and though I have his Summary for 1896, I have not the Summary for 1894. Messrs [2] P. S. King & Son King Ct. Westminster (who deals in Parliamentary & other official papers and supply us with ours) tell me they do not stock these summaries, because they have only a temporary value, being rendered obsolete by the fuller and corrected version published in the Annual Report. So I have gone to the 57^th Annual Report for the number of deaths in the 7?towns you name (the rates are not given) & from the Supplement to the 55^th Report I have copied the rates for the ten years 1881-90, & have added the actual number of deaths.[3] The proportion of children in England in Wales & in London not finally accounted for by the recruiting officers in 1894. I had of course no difficulty in finding in the 26^th Annual Report of the L.G. Board; but I am vexed not to have been able to find precisely the other figures that you require.

Yours very faithfully | Arthur W. Hutton [signature]¹

Those Summaries for London are very useful. I only recently knew of their existence as they do not form part of the regular set of [4] Parliamentary papers. But I am told it is not wise to quote from them as people find great difficulty verifying these ^figures from the same source while corrections made in the later & final returns may lay your figures open to the suspicion of having been wrongly quoted.