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respect of infectious disease existing among their pupils, and then.
help has often proved very serviceable. A regrettable fact connected
with the existence of infectious disease, in relation to
education, is the length of time during which children living
in infected houses, but in good health themselves, have to be
kept away from school, to the curtailment of the short period
devoted to education; and although they may at the same time
be meeting their school.fellows at play, thus to a certain extent
neutralising the precautions taken at school. It is obvious that
fresh and even stringent legislation is needed to enable us to
cope with a difficulty of this sort.viz., an Act for the compulsory
removal of the sick when such removal is necessary to
secure isolation
POPULATION, INHABITED HOUSES, &c.
The population of Kensington, estimated to the middle of the
year was, in round numbers, 173,500 (=79.2 per acre); males,
69,750, and females, 103,750; excess of females, 34,000. The
population of the Town sub.district was, approximately, 127,800,
and that of the Brompton sub.district 45,700. The natural increase
during the year, represented by the excess of births over deaths
registered, was 1,393: an estimated further increase of 107
represents the excess of immigration over emigration; total
increase, 1,500. 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. At the present time of writing, however, I
have no very reliable information as to the number of inhabited
houses. Probably they were about 21,500 at the middle of the
year. In places with stationary population the birth.rate may
serve as a guide in estimating a population. But this test is of
little practical avail in a parish like Kensington, where, as we
shall see that, with a constantly increasing population, not merely
the birth.rate, but the absolute number of births also, has “constantly
declined in recent years” (vids Tables T. & II. Appendix).