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SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT.
To the Vestry of the Parish of Paddington.
Gentlemen,
The recurrence of the Census attaches an
additional interest to the year 1881. The primary
importance of the Census to the sanitarian is that it
enables him to deal with actual facts instead of
guesses at truth, or, in other words, to substitute
statistics based upon reliable enumerations for those
derived from mere estimates, and so to determine
with accuracy the changes, whether progressive or
retrogressive, in the sanitary condition of a district.
The necessity of such a periodical check is
apparent when one considers that an over-estimate
of the population will produce an unfairly lowestimate
of the birth and death rates, whilst an
under-estimate will produce an exaggeration of these
rates. Learning from the Census the enumerated
population, and from the Registrar-General's Annual
Summary the total number of births and deaths in
a district, one can easily show what actually were the
birth and death rates in 1881. The diminution in