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4
BIRTHS AND BIRTH RATE.
The number of births registered during the year was 4936, a
rate of 37.82 per thousand population. This is a rate (0.89) lower
than that of last year, but much greater than that of London, which
was 30.7. The Registrar General remarks that this is the lowest
birth rate recorded in London since 1841, when the rate was 30.4.
In 1876 the rate was 35.9, but from that date it has fallen
continuously year by year.
I am indebted to the British Medical Journal for the following
extract:
" THE TRUE DEATH-RATES OF LONDON SANITARY DISTRICTS
DURING 1888.
"In the accompanying table will be found summarised the vital and mortal
Statistics of the forty-one sanitary districts of the Metropolis, based upon the
Registrar-General's returns for the year 1888. Quarterly summaries of these
statistics have already appeared in these columns. The mortality figures in the
table relate to the deaths of persons actually belonging to the respective sanitary
districts, and are the result of a complete system of distribution of deaths
occurring in the institutions of London among the various sanitary districts in
which the patients had previously resided. Thus the precise number of deaths
of persons actually belonging to the respective sanitary districts is known, as
all deaths occurring in institutions of persons who had previously resided in
another district have been excluded from the total number of deaths in the
district in which the institution is situated, and have been credited to the
district from which they came. By this means alone can trustworthy data be
secured upon which to calculate reliable rates of mortality.
"The 131,080 births registered in London during the year 1888 were equal to
a rate of 30.7 per 1,000 of the population, estimated at 4,282,921 persons,
which showed a further decline from the rates in recent years, and was lower
than that recorded in any year since 1841, when it was 30.4 per 1,000. In the
various sanitary districts the birth-rates showed the usual wide variations,
owing to the differences in the age and sex distribution of their populations.
In St. George, Hanover Square, Kensington, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and St.
James, Westminster, the birth-rates were considerably below the average :
while in East London, St. Luke's, St. Olave, Southwark, and Fulham, where
the population contains a large proportion of young married persons, the birthrates
showed an excess.
"The deaths of persons belonging to London registered during the year under
notice were 77,686, equal to an annual rate of 18.2 per 1,000 of the estimated
population, which was considerably lower than in any year since civil registration
was established in 1837. During the past eight years of the current decade
the mean death-rate in London has been only 20.1 per 1,000, while it was equal
to 24.4 in the ten years 1861-70, and to 22.5 in 1871-80. The marked decline