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REPORT.
I.—AREA AND POPULATION.
The District consists of nine Parishes, having an aggregate
area of 22,766 acres, extending with a horse-shoe-like contour
from Raynes Park in the west to the boundary of Kent, near
Wickham, in the east; and from Tooting and Wimbledon
in the north to Coulsdon Common, near Caterham, in the
south.
Exclusive of public institutions, its population increased
from 21,160 at the census of 1881 to 26,233 at that of 1891,
and assuming that a similar ratio of increase has been maintained
since the latter date, the number of persons may be
estimated to have been 30,000 at the middle of 1897, consisting
of 14,300 males and 15,700 females.
Although six years have elapsed since the last census, the
returns of inhabited houses indicate that this estimate is
accurate for the District as a whole, but in the individual
parishes there is now great difficulty in judging the population,
for the estimates derived from the number of inhabited houses
in each case differ more or less considerably from those based
on the assumption that the ratios of increase or decrease have
remained the same since 1891.
Table I. in the Appendix shows the population of each
Parish on which the vital statistics of the year have been
calculated, but, for the above reason, the figures cannot
pretend to strict accuracy. As a rule, a mean between the
two extremes has been taken, so that the birth and
death rates may not be represented as too low on the one