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number of inhabitants rose from the comparatively small
number of 19,600 in 1861, to the extraordinary high
figure, according to the original statement issued soon
after the last Census was taken, of 53,988.*
To secure uniformity of calculation in deducing the mean
death-rates of the several Sub-districts, the method pursued
by the Registrar General in bringing the population
to apply to the middle of a year, is adopted, and in this
way we arrive at the fact, that the inhabitants of this
rapidly increasing parish must at that period of the year
in 1871, have numbered very little short of 55,000(54,847).
The total number of deaths during the year 1871 was
1,472, consequently a rate of mortality of 26.83 per 1000
persons living has to be recorded; but excluding 91 Nonparishioners
who died in the Union infirmary, situated in
this parish, this rate becomes very considerably diminished,
and may be stated to be somewhat under 25 per 1000.
The annexed table gives the causes of all the deaths
that occurred in the Sub-district during 1871, with the
ages, sex, and social positions of the deceased persons. It
also gives the Census return of the total population, as
well as the actual increase during the last decade,
1861-71.
* The Registrar General in his last Annual Summary more than
hints that these figures fall somewhat short of the actual enumerated
numbers; for owing to some undefined error on the part of the enumerators
employed in taking the Census of the Wandsworth District, they
failed so it is said, to account, at first, for 28 residents in Battersea. This correction,
if it be a proper one to make, would raise the population, at the period
referred to, to 54,016, and as the Registrar General himself remarks,
would have given to the 10 years increase, a number "equal to 176 per
cent." Seeing, however, that the Registrar General's actual correction
of the Census numbers applying to the entire Wandsworth District is to
the extent of 10 only, increasing the total originally stated from 125,050
to 125,060, the Medical Officers of Health can hardly venture to claim
28 as a correction of the Census returns of their own individual Subdistrict.
They have therefore considered that a calculation based on
the originally-stated numbers, which are being still put forward in all the
Registrar General's Weekly Returns of Births and Deaths, will be the
most satisfactory way of proceeding, and less open to objection, or the
suspicion of exaggeration, than any other.