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22
1903]
Illegitimate Births.—These numbered 242 as against 248 in 1902, and
an average of 261 in the ten years 1893-1902. They equalled a rate of 0.71
per 1,000 of the population, compared with a mean decennial rate of 0.78
per 1,000.
This is an inaccurate, although a usual, way of expressing the illegitimate
birth-rate; the more correct method would be to state it as a proportion to
the unmarried women living at child-bearing ages. The birth-rate for the
year, on the basis of the enumeration taken at the last census, was 5.1 per
1,000 unmarried women, aged 15-45 years, compared with a mean rate of 5.6
in the decennium 1893-1902.
The illegitimate births have in actual numbers, apart from the decline in
any rate proportion, been falling ever since 1871, and that despite the fact that
as the population increased so too did the unmarried women at the childbearing
ages become more numerous, for as we have already seen they
increased from 45,032 in 1891 to 47,711 in 1901.
The following figures have been gradually collected and are now published
for the first time :—

* The births in these years could not be ascertained.