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6
rate the work, so that it may have the value of a
statistical inquiry. All this will require time for its
completion, and therefore, I have considered it best
to postpone the general disquisition, and to submit
to you now merely a brief account of the sanitary
business of the last twelve months.
In the course of the year which has just expired,
there were 3,184 births in the City, 2,883 deaths,
and 1,689 marriages. Each of these numbers is
below the average for the corresponding periods of
the last ten years; for during that time, the annual
proportion of births was 3,504, of deaths 3,102, and
of marriages 1,740; and, although the falling off
in the several proportions has been very general
throughout all the districts of the City, yet it has
been most marked in the central, where, from the
emigration of the wealthier classes, and the encroachments
for trade and public improvements on the
domiciles of the poorer, the resident popidation has
been greatly thinned. In other districts where these
influences have not been so largely at work, the
births and marriages have been more evenly maintained,
although there also the death-rate has been
greatly reduced; and this is no doubt due to the
exercise of your sanitary powers.
Looking at the general aspect of the year, as it
is seen in the mortality returns, it will be noticed