View report page

21
death-rates become respectively 2.34, 1.54, 2.15, 2.34 and
2.59.
3rd.—But if the population be estimated from the births
(and the Registrar General has shewn that as a rule the mean
birth-rate of England is 3.318 per cent. of the population,) the
calculated population becomes for the whole parish 89,873,
for Dulwich 1597, for Camberwell 23,327, for Peckham 34,840
and for St. George's 30,109; and the death-rates became respectively
2.05, 1.69, 2.09, 2.16 and 1.91.
Now I can scarcely doubt that the first of the above estimate
of the population of the whole parish is considerably below the
truth that the last is considerably above the truth. I believe
also that the second estimate is a good deal below the actual
number of the population. But even if that estimate be
adopted, it will be observed that the parochial death-rate founded
upon it is considerably below that of London, and that of any
of the groups of districts into which the Registrar General
divides London.
As regards the sub-districts of the parish, I have no doubt
that the first and second estimates are verv wide indeed of the
truth ; for every thing shews that even if the parish as a whole
have increased with some kind of uniformity of increase, the
parts of the parish have increased irregularly and by fits and
starts as it were. I have reason to believe that these estimates
are especially misleading as regards the sub-district of St.
George's, and that during 1864 there has been an unprecedently
large influx of population into it.
On the whole, I have no hesitation in affirming that the
death-rates of the parish at large and of its sub-districts are,
compared both with their death-rates in former years and with
those of the rest of London, far from unfavorable.
As regards zymotic diseases, Camberwell presents in many