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parish and for its parts are not likely to have been continued
uniformly up to the present time, and are still less likely to
be thus continued during the years which will elapse before
the taking of the next census.
2nd.—I have shown on former occasions how different
the condition of the population in Dulwich is to that (say) of
St. George's or Peckham. In Dulwich, for example, there is a
relative preponderance of large houses, small families, and many
servants. Under such conditions zymotic diseases are much less
likely to spread and to prove fatal than they are in St. George's
or Peckham; and moreover, servants (who form a large proportion
of the population) are for the most part persons at the
healthiest period of life, whose mortality is naturally low, and
who, moreover, if they die, generally go home to die or die
in some public institution. For such reasons the mortality
of Dulwich is necessarily low compared with that of any other
district in the parish.
3rd.—I have already referred to the influence of small
birth rates on the death-rates, and it is impossible not to
admit that the low birth-rates of 1886 have had some influence
on the death rates, and that there is an important connection
between the low birth-rates and the low death rates which
prevail, and have always prevailed, in Dulwich.
Lastly.—No inconsiderable proportion of our deaths
occur in institutions outside the parish, and obviously, if
these be excluded, our death-rates appear proportionately low,
and by so much fail to express the truth. It is only during
the last three or four years that the deaths of parishioners
occuring outside the parish have been furnished to us. This,
therefore, is a source of fallacy which can now be dealt with.