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crease of 935 represents the balance of immigration over
emigration; total increase, 2,550. It is always difficult to
estimate with accuracy the number of persons living in a
large and populous place like Kensington, still in the process
of growth. The best available test, perhaps, is the number
of inhabited houses: if these show an increase, an increase
in the number of people may be inferred, and vice versa. In
July, 1883, there were some 21,030 occupied and rated
premises, an increase of 122 as compared with July, 1882.
The number of persons to a house at the census in April,
1881—taking the return of houses from the rate-book—was
7'89, a number which multiplied by 21,030 gives 167,819 as
the population estimated to July. In places having a
stationary population, e.g., parishes which have no available
building land, and which are not undergoing obvious
depopulation, as by the pulling down of the houses of the
poor to make room for mansions, warehouses, &c., the birthrate
may serve as a guide in estimating a population. But
this test is of little practical avail in a place like Kensington.
We shall see, moreover, that with a constantly-increasing
population, not merely our birth-rate, but the absolute
number of births also has declined considerably of late
years, fewer children having been born last year than in
1874, when the population was smaller by thirty thousand.
The most remarkable feature, however, in connection with
the population of Kensington, one, moreover, which, to a
large extent, accounts for the small and diminishing birthrate,
is the inordinate excess of females. It was thought
astonishing when the census of 1871 revealed a majority of
22,000 females, but that majority has now grown to upwards
of 33,000. 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 almost needless to say that females are in excess in
the general population: in London the excess is about 13
per cent., in Kensington it is about 50 per cent.