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5
HEALTH AND SANITARY CONDITION OF THE
ENTIRE DISTRICT.
The vital statistics contained in the general tables
appended to this Report, relating to the entire District,
will not be found to indicate any very alarming condition
of the public health, though the past year has, in common
with the whole of England, proved one of exceptional
severity in respect to both the prevalence and fatality
of epidemic diseases.
That the population of this District has very greatly
increased by excess of births over deaths, and greater still
by immigration, in the interval of this and the previous
year's Report, there are abundant proofs. By natural
increase alone the number of inhabitants has been augmented
to the extent of 1,711, the deaths having been
2,393, and the births in the same period 4,104. The
increase by immigration can be conjectured only, but that
it has been unusually great, may be inferred from the fact
that building operations have at no period assumed such
vast proportions as they have done in the past year,
evidence of which is furnished by the reports of the several
surveyors of the District.
Until the taking of the next Census (which in all probability
will be accomplished in April, 1871, and before the
Report for 1870 is issued), it would serve no good purpose
to attempt to deduce a death-rate from data which must
of necessity be assumed, and from figures which there are
at present no reliable means of verifying.
Zymotic Diseases. — By reference to Table I, Appendix,
which gives the number of deaths from all causes and
particularizes the maladies of the Zymotic class, it will be
seen, that in addition to a greatly heightened mortality from
ordinary diseases, those of the Zymotic group have proved
fatal in a larger number of cases by 110 than they did in