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l½ times that of a group of the boroughs having the highest proportion of well-to-do
residents. The degree of contrast afforded by the two extremes of metropolitan
borough populations is thus much about the same as that of the Registrar General's
extremes of social groups according to occupation. More than three-fourths of the
children of the better class group of boroughs are scheduled as of the elementary
school class and consequently this group is not at all representative of the
well to-do class.
An attempt has been made to assess the relative fertility of the mothers of children
of the elementary school class and that of other mothers in the County, and the result
indicates that the eSective fertility of mothers of the elementary school class is
4.4 times that of other women actually, or, if allowance is made for difference in ages
due to later marriage, etc., of the well-to-do, the proportion becomes reduced to
3.6 to 1.
As a consequence of the lower fertility of the well-to-do, their proportion of
sterile marriages and of one and two child families must be much greater than among
the poorer class. It will, therefore, necessarily follow that in any statement of the
mortality rates among small as compared with large families for the population as
a whole, the small families will contain a far greater proportion of well-to-do children
with low mortality, while the large families will consist almost entirely of the poorerclass
population with high mortality. It is this fact which renders almost useless
for many purposes the mass of detail contained in the census volume of fertility
of 1911. The point is worthy of being stressed at the present time since an inquiry into
the conditions of fertility is far more urgent now than in 1911 and it is imperative that
the necessary details be again obtained in the census of 1931. Better social class
grouping will then be available and a clearer view of the relation of class to size of
family and loss by mortality will be made possible if detailed analysis is made separately
for each social group.
Deaths.
The deaths in the civil population of London during 1928 numbered 53,895,
giving a death rate of 12.1 per thousand, this being the same as in 1927. The distribution
of death by ages in 1928 and recent preceding periods is shown in the following
table:—
Year.
0—
1—
2—
5—
10—
15—
20—
25—
35—
45—
55—
65 +
All
ages.
1919-22 7,836 2,131 1,919 1,376 853 1,175 1,318 3,103 4,238 6,414 8,265 19,828 58,456
1923-26 5,546 1,611 1,453 828 637 1,013 1,220 2,479 3,659 6,080 8,456 21,004 53,986
1927 4,357 1,181 1,152 788 527 992 1,254 2,420 3,620 6,434 9,073 23,372 55,170
1928 4,879 1,556 1,278 863 484 1,042 1,215 2,362 3,375 5,869 8,705 22,267 53,895
The reduction in the number of deaths in 1928 upon the figure for 1927 is distributed
generally among the various causes of death, but, as would be expected in an
ageing population, there was an increase in the recorded deaths from diseases of the
heart and circulatory system and from old age. Measles was epidemic during the
winter and the deaths from this cause numbered 1,358 as against 181 in the preceding
year. Some increase also occurred in the deaths from whooping cough and enteric
fever.
Fatal street accidents continued to increase in number, the total being 747 in
the 52 registration weeks of 1928 as against 669 in 1927. Among children under
15 years of age, the deaths numbered 149, this being the same as in the preceding
year.
The death-rates from all causes and from certain specified causes in each metropolitan
borough and in London as a whole will be found in the table on page 30.
Infant
mortality
The weather conditions in the summer of 1928 were not so favourable to infant
life as in 1927 and the deaths under one year of age per thousand births increased
to 67 as against 59 in the preceding year; the latter rate, however, was the lowest