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numbered 4,836 (2,542 males and 2,294 females), being 442 more than
those of the year 1903, and 174 more than the average number
during the past ten years. This makes an annual death-rate of 16.7
per 1,000, or 1.7 below the average death-rate during the ten years
1894-1903, which was 18'4 per 1,000. Corrected for age and sex
distribution, this death-rate becomes 17.8 per 1,000, the corrected
death-rate for London during the same period being 17.4.
Distributed to the various Wards, the deaths were as given in
the table below, in which also are calculated the Ward death-rates.
With regard to these latter, it is essential to remember that in such a
shifting population as pertains in West Ham, the liability to error in
estimating the population increases with each yearly advance from
census year, and this liability is magnified when dealing with separate
localities.
The natural increase of births over deaths account for 4,440, or
roughly, two-thirds of the estimated increase, and the Borough
Engineer informs me that the houses finally passed for occupation
during 1904 were as follows:—New Town, 4; Forest Gate, 8; High
Street, 2; Broadway, 0; Park, 1; Upton, 9; West Ham, 25;
Plaistow, 75; Hudsons, 279; Canning Town, 6; Tidal Basin, 237;
Custom House, 81. It is, however, pure guess work to assume that
the new houses contain the same average population as was discovered
in census year, and the calculations founded thereon are necessarily
given with caution.