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8
The population to the middle of 1897 may be
reckoned as 31,089. Plans for 172 new houses
were passed, so that the estimate is not likely
to be too high. The births were 942, giving a
birth rate of 30.2. The deaths were 470, giving a
death rate of 15.1; this includes 23 deaths in
Brookwood Asylum and 1 in Richmond Hospital.
In addition there were 49 deaths in the Workhouse
of persons belonging to other sanitary districts
included in the Union, and probably some of the
deaths in Brookwood were of persons from those
districts.
A death rate of 15.1 is very favourable, and
even more so when it is remembered that the
zymotic death rate is as high as 2.2, and that the
latter rate can be reduced by means I have pointed
out elsewhere.
For the last four years I give the death rate
for each quarter, and in course of time I hope by
this means to show the exact time of year in which
the reduction of the death rate will take place. The
most deaths from zymotic diseases take place in
late summer and autumn, and it is by decreasing
the number of those deaths that we must hope to
bring our death rate down to an average of 14 per
1,000. (See Table B.) At Maidstone such figures
have been kept ever since 1870.
Jan.-Apl. Apl.-July. July-Oct. Oct.-Dec. Year.
Old Maidstone, 1870-74 21.5 17.9 20.6 18.0 19.5
New Maidstone, 1895 19.4 12.2 12.6 15.6 15.0
In other words, if the present population of
Maidstone existed under the same conditions as the
population of that town 25 years ago, no fewer than
105 more persons would have died there in 1895