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that he should add these numbers to his figures, as he formerly did in
connection with the late Strand District, but "while fully recognising
the theoretical propriety" of the suggestion, the Registrar-General found
that (a) the omission of these populations does not raise the rates by
more than 1.7 per cent., and (b) that several other Metropolitan
Boroughs are affected in a similar way, and that in many cases the due
allocation of population could only be made by the help of information
which was not recorded at the census. Moreover, it appears that Westminster
contains an excess over the average of about 6,700 domestic
servants, and the Registrar-General believes that as many domestic
servants go away to their homes in case of serious illness, it is a question
whether the population of Westminster, which should be used for
calculating death-rates, is not too high even without the addition of the
inmates of Poor Law Institutions."
The omission of paupers living outside the City makes little
difference in calculations for the City as a whole or for the larger Wards,
but for the smaller Wards the effect is more serious. In some of the
Wards most affected the counterbalancing effect of a large proportion of
servants does not exist, for such Wards have only a small proportion of
that class. Moreover, a considerable number of servants do remain in
the City when ill (see pp. 87 and 88). If it were practicable it would be
better to allocate the outlying paupers in the first place, and afterwards
to deduct persons in hospitals in the City who are not citizens and in
hotels those who have not. been resident for more than a few days. This,
however, would be somewhat difficult to achieve, but may eventually be
managed if the Registrar-General would permit access to the census
records. The effect of those may be indicated with respect to Charing
Cross Ward. The population at the census is given as 5,755, with 120
paupers, 5,875; on enquiry I find that there were about 2,400 persons
in the various hotels, clubs and hospitals, probably haJf of these might
be reckoned as staff, and deducting the remainder a nominal population
is obtained of 4,675, and calculated to the middle of 1901, 4,600. This
would raise the death-rate of that Ward for 1901 from 10:3 to 13.2.
Probably similar results would be found in those other Wards containing
a large number of hotels and clubs, but the information is not yet
available.
As the Registrar's figures nearly agree with mine and for the sake
of comparison, I propose to take his (180,800) as the population of the
City for statistical purposes as a whole, but in calculating statistics for
the Wards I have distributed paupers amongst them, and have made
such deductions as are available from the census report as regards
hospitals. Thus for the year the population of the Wards has been
estimated as below:—