View report page

98
from without the parish, undergo no natural increase,
and arc subject to a high mortality, the latter averaging
about one-fifth of all deaths registered—an amount which,
without such correction, would simply reflect the fluctuations
of the mortality of these institutions, and render
the death register useless as a datum for deducing the
natural death-rate of the sub-district. On the other
hand the deaths of Wandsworth parishioners that occur
in the Union Infirmary are registered in Battersea, in
which sub-district that institution is situated. The correction
referred to consists in withdrawing from the
calculation the population and mortality of the Asylum
and above-named hospitals, and adding to it the deaths
of Wandsworth parishioners that occurred in the Union
Infirmary. Inclusive of the deaths that took place in
uublic hospitals and other institutions external to the
sub-district (and which may be fairly assumed to be
equalled by the deaths of non-parishioners within the
sub-district), the death-rate was 17.37 per 1,000, or .37
per 1,000 only above the healthiest of the rural districts.
The birth and death-rates here given have been determined
from the foregoing estimate of the population
according to the official method, but looking to the remarkably
large number of births in excess of the decenial
average and the great increase in the number of
inhabitants as shewn by the parochial rate-book, there
can be but little doubt that the population thus estimated
is very much below the actual number, a result which it
need be scarcely observed, has the effect of unduly raising
the birth and death-rates. The assumption that