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6
The increase of 1825 persons can be tolerably correctly
ascertained, but it is not so easy to apportion the increase
in the different Wards; therefore, for this year at least, I
have left the population untouched.
The Tables which form part of this Report, have been
calculated on the numbers of the last Census Returns as a
basis, and without the addition of the above-named number
of persons, which is made up in part by immigrants, and the
rest by a continual excess of births over deaths.
Table No. 2 is an important one, and I think requires no
explanatory remark. The proportionate healthiness of the
Wards, compared with each other, is about what might, by
a previous knowledge of the places, have been expected.
The rate of deaths per 1000 persons living, is nearly in
the same ratio as the distribution of the population; whereever
the relative number of persons to a given space is
great, there must surely be a higher death return. The
West Ward is thickly populated, its area is something like
one half of that of the other Wards, it cannot and it does not
possess to an equal extent the advantages of cleanliness and
ventilation, and a high rate of deaths is clearly the consequence.
It must suffer more than other Wards, not from
contagious disease alone, but from many others; for example,
Pulmonary Consumption, and most of the diseases which
have a tubercular origin.