View report page

88
details of the census shall have been published, to offer an explanation
of this excess, which, of course, helps to account for
the decreasing birth.rate already referred to. But I may say at
once that the excess is due in no slight degree to the fact that
Kensington being a rich parish, a very large number of female
domestic servants are employed. It is at once a salubrious and
a fashionable parish, moreover, and these considerations may
account for the presence among us of many ladies, single and
widowed, who prefer to make it their place of abode. There are
numerous boarding schools for girls, and they, probably, contribute
in some degree to the excess. The superior longevity of
women is a factor of no mean importance in determining the relative
numbers of the sexes. It is almost needless to say that females
are in excess in the general population: in London the excess
is about 13 per cent., in Kensington nearly 50 per cent.
Kensington is still in process of development by building, but
to a very moderate extent compared with past years, 1861.70.
For example, owing to the increased value of property, its rateable
value rises higher and higher, and out of proportion to the
actual increase in the number of house.