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VITAL STATISTICS.
Population.
The primary difficulty in presenting the vital statistics for the
year under report is that of estimating the population of the district
with any degree of accuracy. The data obtained under the National
Registration Act are not available to this department, nor, of course,
is the number of enlistments known. It has only been possible,
therefore, to estimate in very round figures that the nett civil
residents, (i.e., excluding enlistments, etc.), at the middle of the
year were 40,000. This basis has been adopted for the calculation
of the death rate, but the re-estimated nett number of civil residents
in 1915 has been adopted as a more reasonable basis for the
calculation of the birth rate. The Registrar-General has furnished
an estimate of the civil population as 38,683, but it is not quite
clear whether this figure, like the similar figure for 1915, does not
exclude residents in local institutions.
Deaths.
The number of deaths registered in the district was 1,063,
but 527 of these did not belong to the district, while 62 residents
died without the district. Thus the number of deaths properly
attributable to the district was 598, which gives the death-rate for
the district of 14 9 per 1,000 of the population. Adopting the basis
of the population estimated by the Registrar-General, the death