§ MR. W. M. TORRENSasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether the rate of mortality in the ten cities and boroughs of the Metropolis is not many degrees less than in several of the large provincial towns of the United Kingdom, whose supply of water is drawn in from other than riverine sources, and the sale of which, to consumers, is altogether in the hands of the Municipal Corporations?
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEThe facts, according to the best information I can obtain at so short a Notice, are these. Taking the towns in the United Kingdom with a population above 100,000, and excluding those where the supply is furnished by Companies, or where the supply is partly or wholly from rivers, there are, I think, nine towns where, according to the last published Quarterly Return of the Registrar General, the death rate was higher than in London, and four where it was lower.