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17
In last year's report I gave a table exhibiting the numbers of the population
in each of the six Registration Sub-Districts, as determined by the
recent census. To that report I must also refer for other facts and considerations
connected with the population.
The Births and Deaths in the Sub-Districts are exhibited in Table III.
During the year there were registered 2347 male births, and 2517
female births, making a total of 4864 births. The male deaths amounted
to 1581, the female deaths to 1596, making a total of 3177. The excess
of 1687 births, probably, does not represent the total increase of population.
All the births are not registered, and the balance between emigration
and immigration cannot be ascertained.
Table IV. is a summary of the census of 1861, exhibiting the number
of houses inhabited, uninhabited, and in process of building, the number
of separate families, and the number of male and female individuals in
each Registration Sub-District. In 1851. the gross population was
109,257, the number of inhabited houses 15537. The increase of population
therefore in ten years, was more than 20,000; and the increase of
inhabited houses to receive this increment of population was 1873.
Particular Causes of Death.—Occupying the first place in the rank
of causes of death is Phthisis, which destroyed 361 persons; this fatal
disease thus accounts for more than 10 per centum of all the deaths.
Closely associated with Phthisis in nature, and ranking third in frequency,
stand the class of Scrofulous diseases. These carried off 311 persons,
chiefly children. If these allied diseases, Phthisis and Scrofula, be added
together, we find that they explain more than one-fifth of the aggregate
mortality. This proportion somewhat exceeds that observed during the
preceding year. It must be remembered that, whilst these diseases are
largely due to the operation of hereditary transmissions, their prevalence
and fatality are much increased by bad nourishment, and by impure air
especially by that form which results from overcrowding. These diseases
therefore, like Fever, and other zymotic or epidemic diseases, become
sanitary tests, and point to distinct causes of unhealthiness. Next in the
order of destructiveness, we find the two forms of lung-inflammations,
Bronchitis, which carried of 332 persons, chiefly adults, and Pneumonia
which carried off 207 persons, chiefly children. These two diseases