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12
Births.
Number of births 2955
Average number of births for previous 10
years 3113
Average birth-rate for previous 10 years 27.4
Birth-rate of Deptford per 1,000, for 1915 26.8
England and Wales 21.8
96 Great Towns 22.2
148 Smaller Towns 21.6
London 22.6
The total number of births registered in the Borough in 1915
was 2,955, as compared with 3,121 in 1914. Of these, 1,479 were
boys and 1,476 were girls.
The birth-rate for the Borough was equivalent to an annual rate of
26.8 per 1,000 of the population, as compared with 28.6 in 1914,
28.0 for 1913, and 26.5 for 1912.
The birth-rate for London was 22.6 per 1,000, compared with 24.3
for 1914, 24.8 for 1913 and 24.7 for 1912.
The popular belief that boy babies outnumber girls in war time finds
some support in the fact that the numbers of male and female births in
recent quarters show an increasing excess in the number of males born.
Unfortunately, statisticians have shown that a continuance of this
excess is no certainty, and it is a fact that during the Crimean War
the ratio of males born actually declined. However, in the first quarter
of this year 1,032 males were born to 1,000 females, in the second
quarter (the ninth, tenth and eleventh months of the war) 1,043, in the
third quarter 1,055.
As regards the actual birth-rate, the decline in this country is insignificant
compared with that recorded in the latest German statistics.
These returns show that in twenty-four leading German cities the
birth-rate decreased during April, May, June and July, 1915, by
20 per cent, as compared with the corresponding months in 1914,
which is equivalent to a loss of four hundred thousand births annually
throughout the German Empire.