Eighth District, 2d Division, comprising the 25th Ward except Bridesburg-Dr. Edward Jones, No. 1945 Richmond Street. Ninth District, comprising the 21st Ward-Dr. William C. Todd, No. 4407 Main Street, Manayunk.

Tenth District, comprising the 24th and 27th Wards-Dr. Elisha Crowell, No. 3937 Market Street.

Eleventh District, comprising the 22d Ward-Dr. Thomas C. Potter, No. 5102 Main Street, Germantown.

REGISTRATION OFFICE FOR BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS.

This department is entirely under the control of the Board of Health, and is located No. 604 Sansom Street.

It is the duty of physicians and midwives commencing practice to call at this office, register their names and residences, and obtain the necessary blanks for births and deaths, and give notice of removal within thirty days.

Clergymen are also required to call at the office and register their names and residences, give notice of removal, etc., and also obtain blanks for return of marriages.

Sextons and superintendents of burial-grounds are also required to register, and blanks are furnished to make weekly returns of interments every Saturday before 12 M.

The number of births registered during the year 1873 was eighteen thousand seven hundred and two (18,702), a decrease of one thousand three hundred and seventy (1370), or 6.80 per cent.

The number of births to 1000 living persons being 23.74-persons living to 1 birth 42.10.* Marriages are returned quarterly; births are returned monthly; deaths are returned weekly.

* A full and interesting report is annually issued, copies of which can be had gratuitously on application at the office.

The Coroner

Is appointed by the electors of the county every three years. The present incumbent is Dr. Kingston Goddard, and his Deputy, H. B. Mahn. Undertaker, Jas. H. Weldon. Driver, Thos. M. Murphy. Medical Staff, Dr. F. F. Maury, Surgeon. Assistants, Drs. T. H. Andrews and Chapman.

The Coroner's functions are sufficiently defined in the following extract from an act of the General Assembly, approved the 22d day of March, A. D. 1867, which declares

"That it shall be the duty of the coroner of the city and county of Philadelphia to hold an inquest on the body of any deceased person who shall have died a violent death, or whose death shall be sudden; provided, that such sudden death be after an illness of less than twenty-four hours, and that no regular practising physician shall have been in attendance within said time, or that suspicious circumstances shall render the same necessary, which said suspicions shall first be sworn to by one or more citizens of said city."

Violent deaths include homicides, deaths from criminal abortion, infanticides, suicides, and deaths from any kind of accident—such as injuries from having been run over in the street, from machinery, from falls, burns, scalds, or accidental poisoning or drowning, etc. In any of the above or like cases, it is the duty of the physician to refuse to give a certificate of death. The Coroner should at once be notified.

When a physician, attending a person who has been

injured by the criminal act of another, discovers that his patient is in imminent danger of death, in order that justice should be done, it is his duty to give notice to the Coroner of the fact, so that a dying declaration may be taken, and the offender arrested.

The duties of the physician in case of sudden death are clearly indicated by the act and proviso. No physician should give a certificate of a death when it is impossible for him to have exact knowledge of its

cause.

Notice should be sent to the coroner's office at the Morgue, or to any police station.

Ordinance in Regard to the Morgue.
(Passed Dec. 3, 1870.)

An Ordinance to establish certain Rules and Regulations for the
Government of the New Morgue Building.

SECTION 1. The Select and Common Councils of the City of Philadelphia do ordain, That the following shall be the Rules and Regulations for the government of the New Morgue Building, located at the northwest corner of Beach and Noble Streets, in the Eleventh Ward:

Rule 1. The Morgue shall be in charge of the Commissioner of Markets and City Property and the Committee of Councils on City Property, and shall be open at all hours of the day and night for the reception of bodies. The exhibition hall shall be open daily

from sunrise to sunset.

Rule 2. There shall be appointed by the Commissioner a superintendent, who shall occupy and reside in the dwelling part of the Morgue building. The superintendent shall be always on duty in

the building, with such assistance as the Commissioner and the Committees of Councils on City Property may deem necessary.

Rule 3. The Superintendent shall have full charge and control of the Morgue Building and all the property therein contained, and shall keep a record book in the office of the Morgue, in which citizens may record the names of missing friends, and describe I their person and clothing, and the address to which information respecting them may be sent.

Rule 4. No corpse shall be received at the Morgue unless in charge of a policeman, or on the order of the Coroner or the Chief of Police, unless the Superintendent of the Morgue shall be satisfied by a citizen that the corpse has been found dead in the street or drowned. When a corpse is brought by a policeman, the attendant in charge will record the policeman's name and number, and the police district to which he is attached.

Rule 5. The attendant in charge will on the arrival of a corpse at the Morgue immediately report to the Coroner. He will then record, in a book to be kept for that purpose, a detailed account of the recovery of the body, when found, and at what place and at what hour, the hour of admission to the Morgue, in whose charge, or on whose warrant; a description of the body, clothing, papers, and money found on it; and in the margin of the book opposite the account state the number in consecutive order of the bodies received, which number shall also be placed on the body. The papers, money, and all other valuables shall be put up in a package, marked with the same number as the body, and placed in security by the Superintendent, who shall be held responsible for the same.

Rule 6. All bodies brought to the Morgue shall remain, if they are not recognized, in the hall of exhibition seventy-two hours or longer, or until decomposition commences. The clothing shall also be exhibited near the body. If, when the exhibition can no longer be continued, the body remains unrecognized, it is to be buried. The clothes shall remain exposed twenty days longer. Bodies when identified shall be immediately withdrawn from exhibition and placed in a private room.

Rule 7. It shall be the duty of the superintendent to notify the Coroner by 9 o'clock A. M. of the reception of a body during the preceding night, and when a body has been received between sunrise and sunset he shall notify the Coroner immediately. Whenever there are indications of violent death he shall immediately report the case to his Honor the Mayor or the Chief of Police.

Rule 8. No corpse received at the Morgue shall be taken away and interred without the Coroner's consent in writing, nor shall a post-mortem examination be held upon any corpse unless in the presence of the Coroner or by his written consent.

Rule 9. The friends of a person whose body has been identified can transfer it to their own domicile with the consent in writing of the Coroner.

Rule 10. The attendants shall under no circumstances ask from or receive from the deceased person's friends or relatives any fees or compensation for services rendered, under a penalty of immediate dismissal by the Commissioner.

Rule 11. On the first day of each month the Superintendent shall make a report to the Commissioner of Markets and City Property, a statement of identified bodies, setting forth:

Second. Name, age, profession, and residence of deceased.
Third. Cause of death.

Fourth. Mode of death.

Fifth. Hour of death.

Sixth. Place of death.

Rule 12. Also a statement of bodies not identified:

First. A succinct description of the body, and whether male or female.

Second. Probable age, and whether white or colored.
Third. Mode of death.

Fourth. Place where body was found.

Duplicates of which shall be transmitted to his Honor the Mayor.

Rule 13. There shall also be kept an alphabetical list of all