┌────────────────────┬───────────┬───────────┬───────────┬────────────┐ │ Registration │Population.│ Ratio of │ Ratio of │ Ratio of │ │ Districts. │ │ Deaths to │ Births to │Illegitimate│ │ │ │ the whole │ the whole │ Births to │ │ │ │Population.│Population.│ Total │ │ │ │ │ │ Births. │ ├────────────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼────────────┤ │ │ │ 1 in │ 1 in │ 1 in │ │Chapeltown │ 4,538│ 57·7│ 30·6│ 74·0│ │Whitkirk │ 3,194│ 56·0│ 29·0│ 36·7│ │Kirkstall │ 17,816│ 45·6│ 24·8│ 23·1│ │Rothwell │ 5,557│ 45·1│ 28·2│ 24·6│ │Wortley │ 16,185│ 44·4│ 24·9│ 26·0│ │Holbeck │ 16,668│ 41·9│ 25·4│ 24·3│ │Leeds, West │ 32,286│ 40·4│ 28·4│ 19·2│ │Hunslet │ 15,784│ 35·5│ 24·2│ 21·7│ │Leeds, North │ 30,465│ 30·9│ 23·9│ 14·3│ │East District │ 24,862│ 28·8│ 24·3│ 20·0│ │ (Kirkgate) │ │ │ │ │ ├────────────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼────────────┤ │Total of Leeds │ 167,355│ 37·3│ 25·5│ 20·1│ └────────────────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────────┴────────────┘ We have seen that in the lowest districts of Manchester of 1000 children born, more than 570 will have died before they attain the fifth year of their age. In the lowest districts of Leeds the infant mortality is similar. This proportion of mortality M. Mallet designates as the case of a population but little advanced in civilization, ravaged by epidemics—a population in which the “influences on the lower ages are murderous, but where the great mortality in infancy is compensated by a high degree of fecundity. It is the case of the population in many large towns, especially in past ages.” But whilst in Manchester, where one twenty-eighth of the whole population is annually swept away, the births registered amount to 1 in 26 of the population; in the county of Rutland, where the proportion of deaths is 1 in 52 of the population, the proportion of births, as shown by an average of three years, (by a registration which I apprehend is more complete than in the lower districts of Manchester,) is only 1 to 33 of the population. The increase of births after a pestilence has been long observed; the coincidence of an increase of births in a proportion to the high rate of mortality in the worst districts has frequently been noted on the continent. M. Quetelet has observed the fact in several countries and gives instances from which the following are selected:—