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17
Illegitimate Births. 73 births were registered during the year as
illegitimate, 15 less than the number in 1904. This is equal to 7.08 per cent,
of all births compared to 8'3 per cent, last year.
Of these 73 births, 34 were the children of residents, and 39 of nonresidents.
The illegitimate births amongst residents amounted to 345 per
cent. The proportion last year was 3'1 per cent.
84.7 per cent, of the non-resident births were illegitimate, a number due
to the fact that most of the women who enter the Infirmary for their
confinements are unmarried.
These relative percentages of illegitimate to all births show very plainly
the importance of separating resident from non-resident births.
Although in this report such separation is made, it must be remembered
that officially all births registered in any district are credited to that district,
and are not included in the statistics of the places to which the mothers
properly belong. If, therefore, any deductions should be drawn as to the
relative morality of Heston and Isleworth and other districts in the Brentford
Union, based on the number of illegitimate births in each of them, this point
should be borne in mind.

These figures are based on the official estimate of the number of inhabitants,
and are calculated to equal annual rates, that is what the rate
would have been for the whole year if the same number of births and deaths
had occurred in the other three quarters as in any particular one. It should
be noted that the real rate for the year is by no means the same thing as
the average of the four given above.