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be made, the difference of mortality will be found to be
125 instead of 82. But it does not follow as a matter of
course that the increase of deaths in the Parish indicates a
corresponding increase in its unhealthiness: it may be due,
as it has hitherto been principally due, to increase in the
number of inhabitants. 1 have shown over and over again
that the population of Camberwell has been increasing
during the last few years for the most part very rapidly,
though not at all uniformly either as regards time or area ;
and I have shown that this irregularity of increase has
been so great, that it has been impossible to estimate with
any degree of accuracy the total number of our population
at any given time. I have latterly adopted two methods
of making this calculation—methods which furnish widely
different results, but between which, as extreme limits, the
truth lies somewhere. The first method is that which is
adopted by the Registrar-General in calculating the
population of London and its districts, and which, for the
large numbers there dealt with, has been proved by experience
to furnish tolerably correct results: it is that of
assuming the yearly increase of population, since the
census-year 1861, to have been the same as the yearly
increase was ascertained to have been between 1851
and 1861. There is no doubt that this method
furnishes for Camberwell as a whole, and still more for
Camberwell in its parts, results which are very far indeed
below the truth. The second method is that of assuming
that the birth-rate remains uniform, and of calculating the
population from the number of children born; but this no
more than the other is likely to furnish accurate results,
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