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23
From the 1st April to the 30th June, certificates for
occupation of new houses have been granted in 81 instances,
thus making 16,934 inhabited houses.
BIRTHS.
The total number of births registered during the year
was 1,589 (784 males and 805 females), giving a birth-rate
of 21.4, or a corrected birth-rate of 19.6 per thousand of the
population.
Of the above, 14 males and 14 females were illegitimate.
On examination of the diagram on the opposite page it
will be seen that this is the lowest birth-rate yet recorded.
The highest total number of births was registered in
1907, viz., 1,711. Since that year there has been a decline in
the total number registered, in spite of the increase of
population. During 1910 there were 1,679 births registered,
so it will be seen that at present there is a decreasing total
number of births, while the population is steadily increasing
in numbers, but the serious thing is that this population
consists mainly of people at the child-bearing period, but
there are evidently factors at work which are affecting the
normal rate of increase. From a national point of view this
is of the utmost importance. The interesting feature about
it, however, is that it is not confined to England, but is
common to all European countries, showing that an advancing
civilisation and a high birth-rate do not go together.
It is one of those matters that will have to be faced and
altered, or a time will come when the European nations will
go down before a more virile people. Also, unfortunately,
the deficiency in quantity is not made up in quality, as the
degenerate and lower strata of society is increasing at a very
much greater ratio than the more educated portions of the
community, who should be producing a higher type of child;
at any rate the prenatal influence of poverty, and its