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Registrar General's returns), the number of births
in that interval has been slightly in excess of tho
deaths. This shows that there has been a considerable
migration of the City population; and it is no
doubt due to the extensive demolition of houses for
City improvements—as in making the street from
the Mansion House to the Thames Embankment,
in constructing the Holborn Viaduct and its approaches,
in building the new Metropolitan Meat
Market, and in clearing the ground for the several
large railway stations of the City. At the present
time much of the ground which has been thus
cleared is still vacant, and "it is very probable," to
use the language in the report of the Local Government
and Taxation Committee of the City, "that
at no period in the history of the City since the Fire
of London (in 1666) was so large a proportion of
the area vacant as in the year 1871." This is
clearly shewn by the falling off in the number of
inhabited houses; for while in 1861 they amounted
to 13,298, in 1871 they were but 9,321. It cannot,
however, be long before the vacant ground of the
City will be again occupied, and then the number
of the population will rise to something like its former
proportions; but the disadvantage of the present
abnormally low proportion of the population is, that
all along until the next census it will seriously affect
the apparent death-rates and birth-rates of the City.