disease[a] was ravaging Hastings and St. Leonards to a frightful extent, and that in one street a black flag was flying as a caution to avoid that particular locality. If calumny could have worked its will, both St. Leonards and Hastings would indeed have been in a bad way, but although the reports were utterly untrue it became necessary to prove them so. Perhaps the reports originated with some jealous person who knew that these towns were enjoying at the time a greater immunity from disease than any other town along the coast. During the last twelve months only four deaths had occurred in the borough from a disease which had been said to be rampant here – four deaths out of a population of about 20,000. Add to this that in the poor parish of All Saints, not a single death from any cause out of a population of about 300, had been registered from the 24th of May to the 28th of July. These facts ought to have been sufficient to refute the mischievous report emanating, as was suspected, from the jealousy of other watering places.
The twelve months up to June would include the last quarter’s return of the Registrar-General, of 1854, which showed the mortality of the Hastings district (including St. Leonards) to be lower than that of any other town in Sussex, except Battle, which latter was at the rate of 14 to the thousand, whilst that of Hastings was 16. The rate of mortality at Brighton was 22, and the average of the entire county was 19.
In his quarterly Return for March, 1855, the Registrar-General stated the health of the population in general had been bad, and that the number of deaths had been 20,000 in excess of the corrected average. This, he said, was attributed to the extreme low temperature of the winter quarters which besides making the times hard for the poor, had cut off children and persons of advanced age in great numbers. But even this mortality it was further stated, was much less than in other countries where was no system of relief such as is administered under the English poor-law. The average mortality in rural districts was 26 to the thousand, and in towns 32. It was gratifying to know that the same high rate of mortality did not apply to the Hastings district, the number of deaths during the same quarter, even with the increase of population, being only 13 more than in the previous year’s corresponding quarter, and only 5 more than in 1853. The facts and figures here given are of themselves a complete refutation of the mischievous reports already referred to.
The ex-Royal Family of France - Balls, Concerts &c.
Visits of Royalty.
The favourable returns of the Registrar-General as respects our own locality, and which have been used in refutation of the baseless rumours of great mortality, may or may not have influenced the French ex-Royal Family to pay another visit to St. Leonards, but in either case their former sojournings -
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