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and want of employment brings with it many privations which predispose to disease, and
induce some hopeless individuals to change the locality in which they have lived, or to
emigrate.
The diminution in the number of births is fifty-eight, and the increase in the number of
deaths seventy-three; at first sight this account might cause ground for some uneasiness, but
if we proceed farther in our examination of the matter, such a feeling, I think, may at once
be dispelled from the mind; the depression of trade will probably account for the falling off
in the number of births, and the increase in the number of deaths, does not place us in a
worse position than the most healthy parishes in London, inasmuch as the death rate for the
years 1867 and 1868 in this parish reached the unprecedently low point of 17.14 per thousand,
and that with the augmented number of 1868 and 1869 it will not be more than 20 per
thousand.
In Rotherhithe there is a fixed population, consisting of the residents, and a moving
population composed of Seamen, who are brought into it by their entry into the extensive
Docks in this parish, persons occasionally employed in various kinds of labour, and the
number is generally augmented by persons employed in executing some public work. We
may consider the moveable class of persons as amounting to two-thousand, and the fixed
inhabitants in the parish to twenty-seven thousand, the whole forming a population of twentynine
thousand souls.
The births registered during the year amounted to nine hundred and forty-nine, four
hundred and eighty-nine males and four hundred and sixty females.
The deaths registered, as the quarterly and annual tables annexed will show, amounted
to five hundred and ninety-nine:—
From April 1, 1868, to June 30, 1868
128
„ July 1, „ to Sept. 30, ,,
171
„ Oct. 1, „ to Dec. 31, „
149
„ Jan. 1, 1869, to Mar. 31, 1869.
151
599
Coroner's Inquests were held on the bodies of forty persons, but nineteen of that number
were not resident in the parish; this circumstance will reduce the actual number of deaths to
five hundred and eighty.
The births exceeded the deaths by three hundred and sixty-nine, and in the latter class
was that of a female aged one hundred and one years.
The rate of mortality, compared with the preceding two years will be seen below:—
No. of
deaths.
Corrected
mortality.
Per
thousand.
From March, 1866, to March, 1867
621
600
21.12
1867, „ 1868
530
507
17.14
„ 1868, .. 1869
599
580
20.0