The elements of vital statistics / by Arthur Newsholme.

  • Arthur Newsholme
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The elements of vital statistics / by Arthur Newsholme. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    26/380 (page 12)
    With the exception of the first period the natural increase was greater than the actual increase of population, and emigration was in excess of immigration. The decline of natural increase in 1881- 91, as compared Avith 1871-81, is due to a lowered birth-rate and not to increased mortality, the mean annual death-rate in 1881-91 having been lower than in any earlier decennium on record. It is unfortunate that there are no accurate means of deter- mining in what degree the increased loss by excess of emigrants over immigrants in 1881-91 Avas due to increased emigration, or in what degree, if any, to diminished immigration.* In Ireland there is a special machinery for collecting emigration returns, and from these returns, combined with the balance of births over deaths, an estimate very near the truth can be obtained. Internal Migration. In urban districts with fixed boundaries the assumption that the rate of increase of the preceding decen- nium Avill continue becomes less accurate in proportion to the extent in Avhich the area of the districts in question becomes covered by houses. Thus the population of the County of London increased at the rate of 17'2 per cent, in 1871-81, at the rate of ID'S per cent, in 1881-91. It is highly improbable that the increase of the next decennium Avill approach 10 per cent., the population having extended in a centrifugal mamier, and overstepped the geographical boundaries of the County of London. The ]3resent anomalies of parochial parishes, federated into registra- tion districts, Avhich often do not coincide with county boundaries, require adjustment. It may happen, as in the preceding instance and in many similar instances for other large towns, that iir refusing to extend the statistical area of a town whose population is rapidly overstepping the municipal boundaries, an area Avhich once included the whole of a town finally includes only its centre, the statistics of the suburbs of the town being arbitrarily separated from those of the centre to Avhich they normally belong. Migration between Urban and Eural Districts. It is difficult to frame a definition Avhich shall satisfactorily distinguish betAveen urban and rural districts. Many small towns, which form the centres of agricultural districts, and which have no imjjortant industries apart from that of the rural population surrounding them, are really rural, and not urban in their characteristics. Dr. * See a paper by Mr. E. Oannan, m.a., Jour. Royal Statist. Soc, vol. Ixi. part i.