View report page

38
Although the estimate that was made in 1866 has not
been very materially enlarged by the natural increase of
the past year (the excess of births over deaths being 79
only), there are good grounds for believing that in the
interval the increase by immigration has been unusually
great, so that it is scarcely possible to arrive at any other
conclusion than that a death-rate considerably under 17
per 1000, is still being maintained in this improving
parish. It should be stated that the above is given as an
approximate estimate only, since it is out of the power of
any one, until the results of another census are known, to
make any really accurate calculation upon this point, or
one that would not be open to considerable objection on
the score of unreliable information. Looking, however, at
the large number of new dwellings that have been very
recently erected, and to the circumstance of the majority
of them being taken possession of by strangers almost
as soon as completed, it is believed, if there be any error
hi the above estimate, it is certainly not one on the side
of exaggeration.*
Statistics of Mortality.—The following table is the usual
one employed in these reports by which to show the number
of deaths that have occurred in the Sub-district during
the year, as well as the diseases and other causes to which
such deaths were certified as being due. From this table may
also be gathered the sex, ages, and social positions of the
deceased persons, and an amount of other information it
would be scarcely possible to supply in any other form,
keeping in view the great object of these tabulated statistics,
viz.—the affording of facilities for a yearly comparison
of results.
* The surveyor, in a recent return, communicates the fact of there having been,
during the year just ended 125 notices received for new dwelling-houses, '• the greater
portion of which," he adds, " have been erected, and some few are still in progress."
Giving to each newly erected house, the average number of inmates, (5*75), it follows
that the population must have been somewhat largely increased by the influx of new
residents during the past year.