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119
POPULATION, INHABITED HOUSES, Sac.
The population of Kensington, estimated to the middle of the
year was, in round numbers, 170,000 : males, 68,200, and females
101,800; excess of females, 38,600. The population of the
Town sub-district was, approximately, 125,400, and that of the
Brompton sub-district 44,600. The natural increase during the
year, represented by the excess of births over deaths registered,
was 1,756 : an estimated farther increase of 244 represents the
excess of immigration over emigration; total increase, 2,000.
It is always difficult to estimate with accuracy the number of
persons living in a large and populous place still, like Kensington,
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, 1884, there were some 21,290 occupied and rated
premises, an increase of 260 as compared with July, 1883,
which would account for an increase in the population of
2,000, the Census in 1881 having shewn an average number
of about 8 persons to a house. 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 birth-rate may serve as a guide in estimating
a population. But this test is of little practical avail in a place
like Kensington, where, as we shall see, with a constantly
increasing population, that not merely the birth-rate, but the
absolute number of births also, has declined considerably of late
years, fewer children having been born in 1885 than in 1875,
when the population was less by 30,000. 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 birth-rate, is the inordinate excess of females. It was
thought astonishing when the Census of 1871 revealed a majority
of 22,000 females ; the majority now exceeds 33,000. Females
are in excess in the population generally; in London the excess is
about 13 per cent., in Kensington it is 50 per cent.