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4
VITAL STATISTICS.
The Registrar General has again furnished two estimates of the
civilian population, (a) that for the calculation of the death rate, 35,764,
and (b) that for the calculation of the birth rate, 39,867. It is
impossible to estimate the total population with any degree of assurance.
The population on the Sugar Card Register was 38,000 It is probable
that this has since been exceeded, owing to a number of persons coming
out of London to reside temporarily in this district, and the figure
towards the end of the year was probably in the neighbourhood of
40,000
No great movement of persons either into or out of the district
occurred during the year. Some of the Belgian refugees left, and. I
am informed, returned to certain fishing villages on the French coast,
but the numbers were not such as to affect the total materially. The
police estimate the Belgian population at between five and six thousand
persons.
Births.—The nett births numbered 559, being 164 less than
the preceding year, and 167 less than the average for the previous
five years, in spite of the increasing population. The birth rate was
14.27 per thousand, as compared with 20.5 per thousand the previous
year and an average of 23 per thousand during the previous five years.
Of the total births, 291 were males and 268 females A few instances
ot inter-marriage between Belgian men and English women have come
under notice.
Illegitimate births numbered 43, as compared with 49 and 40
during the preceding years.
Deaths.—The nett number of deaths was 370. Calculated on
the figure supplied by the Registrar General, the death-rate per thousand
of the population was 10 34. The number of deaths was 53 less than
during 1916, and the death rate was 2.35 per thousand less than in
that year.
The births during the year 1917 exceeded the deaths by only 189.
During the preceding five years the births on the average have exceeded
the deaths by 341.