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2
REGISTRATION DISTRICT AND SUB-DISTRICTS.
"Kensington," prior to 1st January, 1885, was the title of
a Registration District, No. 1 on the Registrar-General's list,
comprising the Parishes of Kensington and Paddington.
Since that date the Parish of Kensington has been constituted
a separate Registration District, and is numbered 1b. It comprises,
according to the Registrar-General, an area of 2,190
acres.
Registration Sub-Districts.—For registration purposes
the Parish is unequally divided into two sub-districts,
respectively named "Kensington Town," (hereinafter, for
brevity, designated "Town,") and "Brompton." The Town
sub-district comprises an area of 1497 acres, the area of
Brompton being 693 acres. The Town sub-district still includes
some open spaces, as Holland Park and Notting-Barn
Farm. The Brompton sub-district, in which the builder has
been busy of late years, many of the new houses being of a
palatial character, is now practically covered. The West
London or Brompton Cemetery, Government property, is in
this sub-district; the Kensal Green Cemetery, in private
ownership, is in the Town sub-district.
The sub-districts present marked differences, which must
be borne in mind in any comparison of their vital statistics.
In Brompton the rich and well-to-do form a large proportion
of the population, whilst in the Town sub-district there is a
considerable, and as I believe an increasing, percentage of
persons of the poorer classes. The poor in Kensington,
however, are better off in one respect than the poor in some
other parts of the Metropolis ; in that, for the most part, they
live in houses fairly well-built, and obviously intended for
occupation by the lower middle classes: many streets of
such houses are now inhabited by persons of a class who in
some of the older parts of the Metropolis live in dwellings
that by comparison might be termed squalid,