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18
the middle of 1866, (in other words the mean population for
the year 1866) must have been as nearly as possible* 82304.
The death-rate for the year on this estimate of the population
amounts to 2.49 per cent. But as I have shewn before, we
have every reason to believe that the population has increased
at a much greater rate than this. The increase in the number
of houses, the increase in the number of births, all shew this.
There can scarcely have been added, during the last 6 years,
nearly 4000 houses to the 12768 already existing at the commencement
of that period, without a somewhat corresponding
addition to the number of the population; the births again can
scarcely have increased from 2391 in the year 1861 to 3321, in
the year 1866 (an increase of nearly 1000) excepting in dependence
on a pretty nearly proportionate increase of the
population yielding them. Now the Registrar General has
shewn that in England the mean birth-rate is 3.318 per cent. of
the population; that is to say that for every 100 persona living
3.318 children are on an average born per annum; and if we
assume, and there seems no very good reason why we should
not assume it, that this was the proportion last year in our
own Parish between children born and population, the mean
population of the Parish must then have amounted to no less
than 100090 persons. The following are estimates of our population
derived from the birth-rate for the last 6 years:—
1861 72061 1864 89873
1862 74975 1865 91500
1863 79505 1866 100090
*There is a trivial difference between this estimate of mine, and the
estimate quoted from the Registrar General, which I have given in my
Report on Cholera.