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children than formerly in its streets and houses. The metropolitan
birth rate of last year was the lowest on record since 1840.
Marriage
Rate.
A shrinking birth rate is the corollary of a declining
marriage rate. Popular education and the wider
distribution of the comforts and luxuries of life
engender a sense of responsibility tending towards the discouragement
of early and improvident marriage. The marrying age is
becoming later. Notwithstanding the larger number of persons of
a marriageable age, the number of those who married in 1890 was
smaller than in 1880 by 552. Marriages are postponed, and the
number declines through the accidents of postponement.
Death Rate.
The deaths from all causes registered in Lambeth
during the year were 5,942. These figures are the
gross. Some parishioners died in hospitals outside
the boundary of Lambeth, and are included in the returns of the
Parish in which they succumbed to their last illness. On the other
hand, inhabitants of other Parishes died in Lambeth. After due
allowance has been made for the subtraction from, and additions
to the register, rendered necessary by the movements of these two
sections during the last few weeks of life, it is observed that 5,842
parishioners died during the year. It is usual in this place to
compare the death rate of the Lambeth Parish with that of the
combined Parishes and district Boards of Works of the Metropolis.
But on this occasion there is a difficulty. The population of Lambeth,
the basis of the rate, is estimated on the latest census returns.
The population of London is estimated on the old census. A
fair comparison cannot be made when the bases are dissimilar.
The figures are, however, placed side by side with this reservation.
The death rate for Lambeth is 21.3. The death rate for the
metropolis is 20.3. But if in the metropolitan calculation, as in
that of Lambeth, the latest census returns are employed as a basis,
the metropolitan rate stands at 21.8. This, and not 20.3, is the
actual metropolitan rate.