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HEALTH AND SANITARY CONDITION
OF THE ENTIRE DISTRICT.
General Remarks.
Fifty-two weeks constitute the Registrar General's
official year of 1874, which he has made to terminate, for
obvious reasons, on Saturday, the 2nd January, 1875.
During this time the population of the entire district was
increased by the births of 5,221 Children, (2,697 Males,
and 2,524 Females,) and was decreased by the deaths of
2,796 persons of all ages. That which is termed the
natural increase of the population was therefore 2,425.
The amount of the immigrational increase is a point not so
easily determined, and it is feared cannot be so with any
very near approach to accuracy, except through a much
more frequent census, which is not at present, however
desirable, very likely to be obtained. After the lapse of
some three or four years from an ordinary decennial
census the Health Officers, of populous and manufacturing
localities especially, begin to experience considerable
difficulty in fixing on a basis upon which a reliable calculation
in respect to the number of inhabitants at any
given period can be made, and are consequently compelled
to fall back upon the uniform system adopted by the
official statist in estimating the death-rates for all the
great cities and most important towns of this and other
countries. (See the Registrar General's Annual Summaries.)
It is to be presumed that the eminent statist of the
Registrar General's Department is quite unable to devise
any better mode of calculation than the one he has
employed for so many years, or he would have adopted it
long since. It has been said with much truth that once
indulge in mere speculations in a matter of this kind, and
it becomes more than probable that some error of greater
or less moment, will creep into any attempted calculations
based upon so unstable a foundation. For these and