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8
good deal of the general healthiness of the year to the prosperity
of the people. A time of prosperity is generally a healthy time.
The people are well fed and clothed, and have fewer anxieties.
There is perhaps less of overcrowding, squalor, and self-neglect;
the debilitating influences of poverty are at their lowest; the
standard of health is raised, and the body is better able to resist
the inroads of disease. With these few general remarks I pass
to the usual detailed subjects of the annual report.
POPULATION.
The population of the parish at the middle of the year was
about 127,436. The town registration district contained as nearly
as can be estimated, 97,069, and the Brompton district, 30,367.
The males numbered about 51,103, the females 76,333—an excess
of no fewer than 25,230. The inhabited houses were 16,768—an
increase of 1056 during the year The average number of persons
per house was 7.6. The houses in the Metropolis generally contain
an average of 7.8 persons per house. The total number of
houses in the parish was rather over 19,000, something like 2,900
being either unoccupied or in course of erection. The area of
Kensington is 2,190 acres; the general density of the population
58 per acre, but it must be remembered that several
hundred acres are still uncovered by buildings, especially in the
north west, while in many of the poorer localities a density far
above the average is attained. The estimated increase of population
during the year was 4,326, viz., a natural increase of 1869
representing the excess of births over deaths, and 2457 being
the excess of immigration over emigration.
BIRTHS.

The Birth-rate was 31.5 per 1000 of the population, that of
the entire metropolis being 35.4. This comparatively low rate is
due to the great disproportion in the relative number of the
sexes to which reference has been made.