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were based largely upon the Food Ration cards, but were proved
by the General Census of 1921 not to have formed a correct basis.
The reduction in the population has been very largely due
to the pulling down of certain areas for improvements, such as
Tower Bridge Road, the Rotherhithe Tunnel, the gradual falling
in of leases, the houses pulled down being replaced by factories;
the natural reduction of the population owing to the decrease in
births, and, lastly, migrations to the suburbs.
The next column in the table deals with the death rate, and
this has been reduced, but not quite by half. Like the population,
there is a considerable amount of fluctuation, but this is inevitable
in dealing with death rates in such small numbers. Wrong
estimates of the population in the War period, naturally vitiate
these figures to some extent. However, we are quite safe in
saying that the reduction which has occurred is likely to be permanent.
Now this reduction, while partly due to local activities,
is also an example of a local expression of a national event.
A more remarkable reduction is the reduction of the birth
rate. This has gone down steadily from 34.2 per thousand of the
population in 1901 to 18.5 in 1927, a reduction of nearly one-half.
This reduction seems to be of a more or less permanent character.
It is by no means an unmitigated evil, because a glance at the
infantile mortality will shew that, parallel with the reduction in
the birth rate there has been a reduction in the number of deaths
per thousand among infants. There is obviously, however, some
connection between the two, which in technical terms is spoken
of as a correlation. The reduction in the infantile mortality is
due to several causes, and possibly one, if not the first cause, is
the reduction in the size of the families.
When mothers had very large families, varying from ten to
fifteen and upwards, they were not able to take such good care of
them, and the loss of a few infants was not looked upon as very
serious. Families were huddled together in overcrowded houses,
the result being that infectious diseases, and other forms of
infection such as pneumonia and bronchitis, played havoc among
the children. The next cause for the reduction in this rate is
probably the education of the mothers in the taking care of