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REPORT.
Gentlemen,
I beg to present my Annual Report on the Vital Statistics
and Sanitary Condition of the Parish of St. Matthew Bethnal
Green during the year 1886.
The basis of most of the calculated Statistics in the following
pages is the estimated population, and upon the correctness of
this estimate depends the accuracy of the various life and death
rates given.
I stated in my last Report (1885) that I was at that time of
opinion that our population was stationary as the number of
births during the year had slightly diminished; during 1886,
however, these have again risen ; and we may fairly assume that
the population must have increased in like proportion; for it is a
well-known fact that birth rates vary only within very narrow
limits.
I estimate the population of this Parish in the middle of the
year 1886 at 129,895. This gives a birth rate identical with that
of last year; but slightly below (1.24) that calculated upon the
enumerated population of the census year, 1881. This difference,
however, I do not think vitiates the accuracy of the estimate, as
the birth rate of the Metropolis has been steadily falling for the
past ten years, and in 1886 was the lowest recorded since 1850 ;
in all probability this district has participated in the fall.