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estimated on the numbers of the two sexes found at the
Census of 1901. The relative proportion of the sexes has, not
improbably, been recently much modified by emigration of
males.
15. Tables VI. and VII., kindly supplied by the Registrar
General, give a summary of the Vital Statistics of the County
and Metropolitan Boroughs in the five years 1903-7 and in
1908. Only two Boroughs had a lower death-rate than Woolwich,
viz., Hampstead and Lewisham.
16. Lives saved.—In the last two years, I have estimated
that 259 and 376 lives, respectively, were saved owing to the
reduction of the death-rate. The average death-rate in the
years 1896-1905 was 15.4. Such a rate in 1908 would have
meant the death of 1,966 persons instead of the 1,487 who
actually died. There was thus a saving of 479 lives in 1908.
But this is not the whole of the benefit conferred by a reduced
death-rate, for each of the 479 lives saved means ten others
who have escaped a weakening illness, or have weathered
illness with less damaging effects, for a lower death-rate means
improved health of the surviving population.
infant mortality.
17. The deaths under one year were only 292, compared
with 372 in 1907. The infant mortality (deaths under one
year per 1,000 births) was 95, compared with 113 last year,
and 103 in 1905, the lowest rate previously recorded. This
great reduction in infant mortality is very satisfactory. The
figures are not liable to error from possible miscalculation of
population, being computed on the known number of births.