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19
1913
BIRTHS.
There were 8,359 births registered, of which 4,317 were males, and 4,042
females. All these children, although borne by mothers belonging to
Islington, were not, however, born here, for 229 were delivered at the Lyingin
Hospital, Finsbury, and 139, which were afterwards notified to the Medical
Officer of Health by the Registrar-General, occurred in various other places.
This practice of the Registrar-General has now continued for three years,
with the result that the particulars as to the births are more accurate than
hitherto, as formerly their gross number was only obtainable. The new
information was the outcome of the Notification of Births Act.
It should be noticed that the number of births at the Workhouse Infirmary
was 101, or 68 less than in the previous year, and 70 less than the average of
the preceding five years. This decrease is no doubt due to the maternity
benefit now granted to lying-in women under the National Insurance Act,
which has enabled them to obtain the necessary medical attention in their
own homes.
The total births represented a rate of 24.77 per 1,000 of the population,
as contrasted with 25.83 in the preceding ten years. A glance at Table F. in the
Appendix will show that these rates are very much lower than those experienced
in former years in the borough, when at times the birth-rate reached nearly
the level of the great industrial towns, in which it is usually higher than in
other places. Thus, during the ten years 1861-70 it averaged 37.20 per 1,000,
and in 1866, 1867 and 1868 was respectively 38.02, 38.97, and 38.86. The
rate for 1867 was the high-water mark for the borough.
There can be little doubt that the ordinary family in this country is
gradually decreasing in size, and that whereas formerly large families were
very general, smaller ones more usually prevail now. It is difficult to prove
this statistically, but, fortunately, new material contained in the Scottish
Census enabled Dr. Crawford Dunlop to make an investigation which throws
a most interesting light on the subject. Delay in marriage is, of course, a
contributory cause, the influence of which he was able to prove, and was
enormously greater when it occurred in the case of a woman than of a man.
Indeed, he showed that a delay of three years on the part of a wife aged 20
to 25 years old reduces the size of the family approximately by one child,
but that it requires a delay of something like forty years on the part of the
husband to effect the same reduction. He found when he compared the
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