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107
It is necessary for me to again remind you, that the
assumed rates of increase are never really maintained; that
as time goes on, vacant spaces diminish in number or cease
to exist, and that hence the nominal growth of populous
districts tends to diminish, year by year, until it comes to a
standstill, while that of outlying and thinly peopled districts
tends probably to increase; that the increase for relatively
small areas, such as sub-districts, is always much more
variable and uncertain than the increase of relatively large
areas, such as that of the entire parish; and that hence as
we recede further and further from the last Census, the
estimates of the parochial population, and especially the
estimates of the populations of the several sub-districts,
tend to differ more and more widely from those of the
populations actually existing.
It is impossible to arrive at an accurate determination of
the populations of the parish and of its several sub-districts
before the Census, which will take place in the early part
of next year. But knowing how inaccurate the estimates
above calculated must be, I have endeavoured to test them
by calculating the populations in several other ways. In
the first place, thinking it probable that the death-rates of
Camberwell and its sub-divisions were not generally very
dissimilar to that which the Registrar General deduces for
the whole of South London, I have assumed that the deaths
due to Camberwell were at the rate of 16.6 per thousand
living, and on these data have calculated the population. In
the next place, thinking it also probable that the birth-rate
of Camberwell was equal to that of the whole of South
London, I have assumed, for the purposes of my calculation,
that the births due to Camberwell were at the rate of 31.3
per thousand living. And in the last place, I have obtained,
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