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4
For instance, the health statistics from a
community of middle-aged persons and young
spinsters would show an apparently lower death-rate
than from a community consisting of young married
couples and their aged parents ; simply because the
children and parents of the young married couples
were persons of the ages of highest mortality ; or in
other words, the death-rate is much higher amongst
the very young and the very old than it is amongst
those of an intermediate age. Certain of the
districts of the proposed extended Borough approach
to the conditions just instanced, and I will therefore,
for the sake of comparison, draw your attention to a
few statistics from other towns not divided by lines
only discernible on maps.
Croydon is a suburban town with a fairly well
mixed population, and for comparison with Kingston
it may be called four times the size. It has four
times the population and four times the number of
houses, but when we come to consider the number
of males and females we find that the former are
only 3½ times as numerous, whilst the latter are
4¼ times as many as in Kingston; that is to say,
there is a much greater excess of females over
males in Croydon than in Kingston. Reigate, a
little smaller than Kingston, has 2,000 more women
than men, whilst Kingston has only a surplus of
1,100. In referring to other towns, not manufacturing,
the excess is found to be even greater
still. These figures clearly show that the Borough
has a subnormal number of females, and those who
know their Kingston well will not be surprised at
the figures, which is only what might be expected
of a town largely inhabited by the artizan class, who
with their young wives and families reside in the
smallest kind of villa residences, where they are
unaided in their household duties by domestic
servants.