View report page

8
census for each year that has elapsed since the last
census; and a fortieth of that difference for each odd
quarter."A similar plan is given in Wilsort3 Handbook
Population in Bethnal Green in 1871 was 120,104
„ ,, in 1861 was 105,100
15,004 -: 10=1500'4 representing
the yearly increase.
Seven and a quarter times this yearly increase=
10,877.9, which added to the 1871 population would
represent the estimate for the middle of 1878 at
130,989.
In past reports it has been my custom, and that of
many of my colleagues, to work by the plan given
above, but I now believe I have been underestimating
my population for the want of knowing better; my attention
was first drawn to the matter by a very able
article in the Sanitary Record for March 28th, 1879.
The writer, after describing the plan attributed to the
Begistrar-General by the authors of the manuals previously
mentioned, points out that the RegistrarGeneral's
plan assumes that the rate of increase, not the
actual increase, of population in a town will be the same
during a current decade as that which occurred in the
preceding decade. It would involve an obvious fallacy
to assume that the actual average annual increase of
population during the present decade will not be
greater than it was in the preceding one ; this would be
to ignore the well known law that the rate of increase
is geometrical, and not merely arithmetical. Population,
like capital when the interest is re-invested, increases