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5
BIRTHS AND DEATH BATE.
The number of births registered during the year (53 weeks) was
5,475 and corresponded to an annual rate of 41.6 for a year of ordinary
length; this rate is slightly lower than that of last year, but considerably
above that of London; which was 30.3. The Registrar General
remarks that this was the lowest Metropolitan birth rate recorded since
1860, when it was 33.6, the lowness of the birth rate was more than
compensated by the still greater reduction in the death rate; for the
excess of registered births over registered deaths amounted to 54,435,
a much greater excess than was ever known before. The natural
growth of the population of London, that is to say its increase,
independently of immigration and emigration was on an average more
than a thousand a week, both in 1883 and 1884.

This total indicates a marriage rate of 20 to every thousand persons,
or, as in each marriage there are two contracting parties, four per cent,
of our population entered the bonds of matrimony during the past year.
Forty-four of these weddings were purely civil contracts, and
required the presence of the Registrar; 25 of them took place in
chapels, and 19 at the Registrar's office.
The rate for London was 17.6, and was the lowest yet recorded; the
continued depression in trade probably accounts for this.
DEATHS OF INFANTS.
No less than 28.6 per cent, of the deaths from all causes were those
of infants aged less than 12 months ; for out of 5,474 children born,
862 died before reaching the age of one year, leaving only 4,613
who attained the age of one year. This gives a death rate, calculated
upon the births, of 157.4, or of 6.6 per thousand population at all ages.
The diseases most fatal to infants were—Inflammatory Chest Diseases,
141; Diarrhoea, 101; Premature Birth, 95; Atrophy and Debility, 90