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still he a nuisance from grit. Tn such cases, new boilers of sufficient
capacity must be installed, and worked under natural
draught, hut coke should certainly be the fuel used.
In practice, however, difficulties enter into the matter
such as the cost of coke, 30s. peT ton, as compared with the cost
of cheap slacks, 20s. per ton, and in these days of keen competition
this is an important factor.
The solution of the problem of smoke and grit emission
seems to lie in the more extensive use of gas and oil. With regard
to the domestic fires, although gas and electricity are extensively
used, there is still a prejudice in favour of the open coal fire, and in
the case of working class families it is the question of expense
which determines the continued use of one coal fire for all purposes.
BIRTHS.
Table 7 is in the same form as in previous years. The
total number of births is obtained from the Registrar General,
and includes all the births which belong to the district wherever
they may have been registered throughout the kingdom. The
registered births numbered 868—461 males and 407 females.
From this total we are not able to distinguish the births into
wards, but as there is only a difference of 19 between the number
of registered and notified births, the ward distribution of the notified
births is approximately correct also for the registered births.
The total number of registered births corresponds to an
annual birth-rate of 12.6 per 1,000 inhabitants. The birth-rate
is the same as it was two years ago, but the number of births is
the lowest recorded for 40 years. We have to go back to 1894,
to find a smaller number of births registered and belonging to the
district; in that year, 834 births occurred, but as the population
then was about 27,000, the birth-rate was nearly 31 per 1,000 of
the inhabitants.
The birth-rate for the whole of England and Wales last
year was 14.7 per 1,000 ; for the 121 County Boroughs and the 140
smaller towns with populations between 25,000 and 50,000 inhabitants
it was 14.8 and for the Administrative County of London
13.3 per 1,000 inhabitants.
A falling birth-rate is general throughout the kingdom,
but while a district is developing, the phenomenon is not noticed,
because some of the features are masked ; the total supply of births
is kept up by the increasing population, and the Ipwered