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REPORT.
Gentlemen,
I beg to present my Annual Report on the Vital Statistics
and Sanitary Condition of the Parish of St. Matthew, Bethnal
Green, during the year 1888, which terminated (for registration
purposes) on the 29th day of December last.
POPULATION.
I estimate the population of the borough at 130,500, being an
increase of 905 over the year 1887. I have arrived at this figure
after much consideration, for although the number of deaths in the
year has increased, yet both the births and the marriages are
fewer than they were in 1887. I usually estimate the population
upon the number of births registered during the year, as birth
rates in large towns are known to vary within very small limits;
but 1888 was a year of such remarkably low rates, that the
Registrar General remarks in his annual summary that the
marriage rate and the death rate in London were each the lowest
)n record, while the birth rate was the lowest since 1841. The
London birth rate has diminished one per thousand, so that it is
)erfectly fair to assume that Bethnal Green has participated in
his diminution, and that a population which would give a birth
ate of one per thousand below that of 1887 would be about the
igure for 1888.
The area of Bethnal Green is 755 acres, about 17 of which are
overed with water. The number of inhabited houses is 18,668
which gives a ratio of 6.99 persons to each house and 173 to each
cre.