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7
The average death-rate during the years 1861-71 was
21.52; in the years 1861 and 1871 (census years, when
the population was accurately known) it was 19.64 and
22.60 respectively. The mean of these rates is 21.55; so
that the death-rate of the past year may be fairly assumed
to have been considerably below the average. It is 2.83
per 1000 less than that for all London, and, for the reasons
above indicated, is doubtless considerably in excess of the
true one. Under these circumstances, therefore, it is
thought desirable to test its accuracy by the adoption of
another, and, it is believed, more trustworthy method of
calculation, consisting in the employment of the ratio
which the births are found, on an average, to bear to the
population, for ascertaining the amount of the latter at any
given period. By an examination of the Registrar
General's Annual Reports for all England, extending over
a period of 20 years, it is found that a certain nearly
constant number of births occur on an average in a given
population during a certain period of time, and that
although this ratio of births to population is subject in
different localities to variations from the ages, proportion
of the sexes, and social condition of the people, yet such
variation is exceedingly small and confined within certain
definite limits, and that it moreover becomes, as it were,
adjusted in a calculation derived from an average of
several years. Thus, the above ratio in 1851 was 34.25
per 1000, or a little under 1 in 29; in 1871 it was 34.50
per 1000, or a little over 1 in 29. In this District during
the years 1861-71, the mean annual number of births
registered was 3,249 in a mean annual population of 97,715
(as ascertained by the census), giving a ratio of 33.25
births to the 1000, or 1 in every 30.07 persons living. In
1871 the ratio was 1 in 28.55, and in all London 1 in
28.98. In the years 1874 and 1875 in all London it was
1 in 28, the increase having been probably due to improved
registration. From an examination of these figures it
would seem that, allowing for the slight variations before
referred to, the law of natural increase is fixed and constant,
and that a given population will, in a given time, under