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These statistics being each year tabulated on precisely
the same forms, give likewise great facilities for a comparison
of results from year to year, which, it is believed,
could not be so well obtained through any other arrangement.
It will be seen by this table that the total deaths from
all causes was 133 (64 males and 69 females), and by
Table II. Appendix, that the registered births were 248
(118 males and 130 females). The excess of births over
deaths is therefore not so great as in the previous year.
Then the excess was 145 ; it is now only 115, which last
number, of course, correctly represents the natural increase
of the population for the past year.
We are (April, 1870) within a year of the usual period
of taking the decennial Census, so that any mere
conjectures as to the increase of population by immigration
would be all but valueless, seeing how little reliance can
now be placed upon the usual method of estimating the
death-rate, and in view of the fact of there having been
erected in the Sub-district during the past nine years, and
since the taking of the last Census, a very large number of
new dwellings, leading necessarily to an influx of new
residents correspondingly great. All that can be said,
then, upon this subject is, that it is confidently anticipated
the next Census will fully bear out the belief that the
figures indicating the relative proportion of deaths to
population in this locality will be most favourable ones.
Causes of Death.—The prevalence of those diseases (the
Zymotic) first enumerated in the above table, has already
been sufficiently remarked upon. It may be observed,
however, that there were registered in the past year, from
Measles, 5 deaths against 1 in 1868; from Scarlatina, 6
against 2; from Diphtheria, 2 against 1; from Whooping
Cough, 6 against 0; from Fever, 5 against 2; and from
Diarrhoea (ordinary and choleraic), 7 against 5; whilst
there is little or no difference to-be found in the tables of
the two years in the fatality attending the other epidemic
maladies.