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7
POPULATION.
The population of the Parish in 1881 was 22,781, and in 1891 it
had grown to 30,936. According to the result of the Poll-census of
the Metropolis, which was taken at the end of the first quarter of
1896 for the purpose of the Equalisation of Rates Act, the population
of the Parish was then 33,485. The population, calculated logarithmically,
from the increase between the years 1891 and 189 3, amounts
to 35,187 for the middle of the year 1899.
Now that a fresh census of our population will shortly have to
be taken, attention is very fittingly being directed to improvements
which are needed in our rather antiquated system. To the
uninitiated it may appear that the taking of a census is a formalism
from which no practical benefits are derived. The student of
sanitation can be under no such delusion. Sanitary science, if it is
to have any pretensions to be an exact science, must be based on
exact figures. The data on which we base our calculations of the
incidence of disease are chiefly drawn from the returns of the
Registrar General, and these are founded on the census. The degree
to which these calculations and the inferences based on them are
correct or faulty will depend upon the correctness and completeness
of the census information.
In France, Germany, and many of our Colonies, a census is
taken every five years, and they spend far more on it than we do;
while we, who were at one time the model for other countries,
remain content with a decennial census. All statisticians are unanimous
that the period should be made a quinquennial one and that
the investigations should be made more exhaustive, and thereby
more instructive.
The number of occupied houses in the Parish in April, 1899
amounted to 5,468, and the number of occupants to each house in the
Parish averages a little over six; allowing one individual for each of
the empty houses (on account of caretakers and their families) the
population, estimated in this way would be about 34,800. This