were at the time both numerous and strong. The com. pulsory notification of infectious diseases is stated to be working well, and this without having led either to concealment of cases or to friction of any sort. Good work is also evidently carried out in such matters as disinfection; and the inspection and supervision of slaughter-houses, bakehouses, and cowsheds is maintained. VITAL STATISTICS. HEALTH OF ENGLISH TOWNS. IN twenty-eight of the largest English towns 5136 births and 3966 deaths

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... re registered during the week ending Dec. 13th. The annual rate of mortality in these towns, which had been 19-0 and 21-5 per 1000 in the preceding two weeks, declined again to 21'3 last week. The rate was 21'1 in London and 21'5 in the twenty-seven provincial towns. During the past eleven weeks of the current quarter the death-rate in the twenty-eight towns averaged 20'7 per 1000, and slightly exceeded the mean rate in the corresponding periods of the ten years 1880-89. The lowest rates in these towns last week were 12'9 in Cardiff, 15'6 in Hull, 16'2 in Leicester, and 16'5 in Derby ; the highest rates were 26'7 in Halifax, 27'2 in Manchester, 27-4 in Sheffield, and 33-2 in Preston. The deaths referred to the principal zymotic diseases, which had been 427 and 472 in the preceding two weeks, further rose last week to 483; they included 213 from measles, 70 from scarlet fever, 65 from diphtheria, 57 from whoopingcough, 41 from diarrhoea, 37 from "fever" (principally enteric), and not one from small-pox. The lowest deathrates from these diseases were recorded in Plymouth, Derby, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Blackburn; the highest in Halifax,