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34
The total deaths, according to this Table, is 121 (55
being of males and 66 of females), which is 8 less than in
1863.
The population of this parish has lately increased to an
extent that leaves little room for doubt, but that the estimate
which puts the number of inhabitants for the year
1864, in round numbers, at 7,250, is as nearly correct as
possible. This estimate, it may be as well to observe, is
based upon a calculation embracing both the natural increase,
as shewn by the excess of births over deaths, and
the assumed increase by immigration, the former being 99,
and the latter, at the very least, 150; and this is only
assuming 5 persons to each newly erected house inhabited
since the termination of the year 1863, at which period
the population was estimated at about 7000. In order,
however, to avoid exaggeration, we will let 100 only stand
as the amount of the past year's increase by immigration.
The deaths then being 121 and the population say 7,200,
it follows that the rate of mortality for the past year
cannot possibly have exceeded that which is usually termed
the death zero of Dr. Farr, viz., 17 in every 1000 living.
This calculation, favourable as it unquestionably is, will
appear even more so when the unusual number of deaths
during the year from old age, (15) is taken into consideration,
and is deducted, together with the number registered
as the result of violence and accident (2), from the total
of the above Table. In this case the mortality resulting
alone from actual disease will be 104, which in a population
numbering as I have already assumed, 7,200 of all classes,
and having rather above the usual proportion of labouring
poor, attracted by the employment to be obtained in the
market gardens of the locality, is as satisfactory a rate as
can reasonably be looked for at the present time.
Within the Bills of Mortality there are, in respect to
deaths from zymotic diseases, but two parishes, viz., Dulwich
and Eltham, that present a lower rate than does
Putney. In Dulwich, with a population at the last census of