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18
STATISTICS OF MORTALITY, ETC.
The excess of births over deaths will, of course, give
the natural increase of population; and if the increase by
immigration could be as correctly determined, a very just
estimate might be formed of the present number of
inhabitants, and a very accurate death-rate be at once
deduced.
The difficulty, however, of determining the increase
which has taken place by immigration in such a fluctuating
population as that of Clapham, necessarily obliges us to
assume a good deal in calculating such death-rate. The
population of this sub-district, at the census of 1861, was
20,890. The addition alone of the numbers representing
the natural increase for the year, viz.—279, will bring the
population up to 21,170. The deaths, then, being 343,
it follows that the death-rate per 1000, without making
any allowance for increase by immigration, will be under
17. With the lowest possible estimate for increase by
immigration, the actual death-rate for the year cannot
greatly exceed 16 per 1000.
The deaths in 1861 were 390, or 47 more than in the
past year, which is all the more satisfactory seeing that a
very considerable proportion of this decrease in favour of
the past year is due to a less fatality attendant upon
zymotic diseases.
The mortality table which follows shews that 63 deaths
only took place as the result of epidemic maladies during
1862, whilst in the previous year the deaths from the
same class of diseases amounted to as many as 86.
Constructed as this Table is, with a view to shew the
causes of death as well as the sex, ages, and social position
of the deceased persons, it cannot fail of proving