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9
Company and the Phcenix Gas Company, respectively. The
Crystal Palace Company charging after the rate of only £4 3s. 4d.
per lamp per annum, whilst the Phcenix Company charge £5.
There have been 49 additional lamps erected in Lewisham
during the year, making a total of 939, and^8 additional in
Penge, making 282.
The cost of lighting during the past year has been £4,280 in
Lewisham, and £1,189 in Penge.
The attention of the Board has been directed to the importance,
more particularly in the interests of private consumers, of
securing the standard of purity and illuminating power required
by the Acts of Parliament, under which the Gas Companies
derive their monopoly; and with this object they have recently
appointed Charles Heisch, Esq. (Gas Examiner for the City of
London), as Gas Examiner for this District.
SANITARY.
The sanitary condition of the District during the year 1873
has been highly satisfactory, and the Board beg to direct attention
to the greatly amplified statistical and other information comprised
in the annexed Report of their Medical Officer of Health.
The population of the District, calculated at 6.15 per inhabited
house, is now estimated at 54,462, viz., 39,893 in Lewisham,
and 14,369 in Penge.
The number of inhabited houses in the District has increased
in the year from 8,175 to 8,756, viz., in Lewisham from 6,073
to 6,487, and in Penge from 2,102 to 2,269.
The number of births has been 1,779, against 1,693 in the
previous year, giving a birth rate for the present year of 32.66
per 1,000, as against a birth rate of 31.85 per 1,000 in 1872.
The number of deaths in the year has been 791 against 788
in the previous year, and 806 in the year 1871, showing a decline
in the death rate from 16.99 per 1,000 in 1871, to 14.84 per 1,000
in 1872, and again to 14.52 in the past year.
This death rate is lower than at any previous time within
the last 10 years, and considerably below the average for that
period, as will be seen by reference to Table II. in the annexed
Report of the Medical Officer.
The death rate for London, the Registrar-General says in his
Annual Summary for 1873, p. 6, " was as low as 21.5 in 1872, and
22.5 in 1873, the mortality having never been so low for any two