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6
The death rates in the 10 years prior to the above were higher
than these. Up to and including the year 1900 I have corrected
the death rates to correspond with the census returns of population,
and for these years the death rates are absolutely correct.
In the year 1897 the death rate, to be exact, was 10.42, so
that this year, with our death rate at 10.40 per 1,000, we have
the pleasure of recording the lowest death rate in Bromley for
at least 20 years, and probably, if the figures could be obtained,
the lowest death rate ever recorded here.
The estimate of our population can never be quite exact in
the years between one census and another, and in stating the
above figure I have based my calculation on the supposition
that the rate of increase of population in Bromley has corresponded
with that of the intercensal period 1891-1901. But
there is good reason to believe that since the last census our
population has increased in a much larger ratio. Comparing
the figures in the building register since the year 1891, the number
of new houses since 1901 has increased in far larger proportion
than in the years 1891-1901. My estimate of our present
population must therefore be a low one, and, if that be so,
our death rate would be still smaller than I have calculated.
It appears to me that it may be necessary in the future to
estimate the population on another basis.
In any given district, as the data from which the death rate is
calculated are practically similar every year, a comparison of
the death rate in various years is instructive, but it must be
remembered that a comparison of the death rate of our district
with that of another is very liable to be fallacious, if one wishes