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REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1888.
IT will perhaps be remembered that I commenced my last
Annual Report by expressing my belief that "the great
influx of foreigners into our District has ceased," and I then
offered some explanations in support of that opinion, but I also
confessed my inability to produce completely satisfactory evidence
in proof. I allude to this matter now because the Jewish Board
of Guardians, and also the Royal Commission on "Sweaters and
Sweaters' dens," were interested in the question, and as these
gentlemen came to the same conclusion as myself, based upon
larger opportunities for such special observation, and for investigating
the various facts which become involved in such an
inquiry, there can be but little doubt concerning the correctness
of the inferences I have deduced. If, therefore, in the year 1887,
the population of the Whitechapel District numbered 73,485, and
if since then emigration and immigration were fairly balanced, the
increase of births over deaths during the intervening period will
bring the present population up to 74,500. This estimate is supported
by the calculation to which, in previous years, I have
resorted in estimating the population from the mean of the two
last known birth-rates. Assuming the accuracy of the above
statement, I can still further estimate the population of the SubDistrifts
as follows :—
The Spitalfields Sub-District has 21,857
Mile End New Town ,, 24,142
Whitechapel Church ,, 17,127
Goodman's Fields ,, 6,114
Aldgate „ 5,260
Of course it must always be remembered that short periods
and a paucity of figures afford too frequently untrustworthy results,
that too small a number of units of observation may lead to