shows the rate in the several great divisions of the metropolis, as given by the Registrar-General in his annual summary, and in Kensington:— DEATH RATE, 1874. per 1,000 Kensington 19.5 All London 22.5 West Districts 20.9 North 21.8 Central 25.6 East 25.4 South 21.5 For registration purposes, Kensington {6a} is divided into two sub-districts of very unequal size and population, and which, as we shall see, are not less remarkable in other respects. The Kensington Town sub-district embraces everything north of the Kensington main road, and a good deal south of it. The Brompton sub-district completes the map of the parish, which, I may say, is exceedingly awkward in shape, being very long from north to south and very narrow from east to west, and therefore present considerable difficulties in the task of sanitary administrations. The Town sub-district comprises two wards, respectively named the Ward of St. Mary Abbott’s, Kensington, and the Ward of St. John, Notting Hill, and St. James, Norland. {6b} The latter ward contains the largest proportion of poor inhabitants. The greater number of poor comprised in this sub-district, as a whole, helps to explain the marked difference in the vital statistics of north and south, to which, I wish, in the present report, to give some prominence. The birth-rate of the parish in 1874 was 31.7 per 1,000 persons living, that of all London being 35.7, and of All England (1872) 35.8. But the birth-rate in the Town district was 33.6, and in Brompton only 24.8 per 1,000. The death-rate of the whole parish being taken at 19.5 per 1,000 (and the necessary redistribution of deaths in hospital and workhouse, in proportion to population, being made), it appears that the annual rate of mortality in the Town sub-district was 20.4 per 1,000 and in Brompton only 16.6. The above facts may be made more clear by a comparative statement. If the births and deaths in Brompton had been as numerous in proportion to population as they were in the Town sub-district, 1,122 children would have been born and 681 persons would have died; whereas, in fact, only 815 children were born, and the deaths, after correction, were only 548. Or, to put it the other way, if the births and deaths in the Town sub-district had been on the Brompton scale only 2,567 instead of 3,536 children would have been born, and only 1,726 persons, in place of 2,147, would have died. These remarkable discrepancies, _quoad_ the birth-rate, may be in part explained by the somewhat larger proportion of females per 1,000 of the population in the Town sub-district compared with Brompton. The total estimated population in July was 138,000, viz., males 56,240, and females 81,760. In every 1,000 living, females were approximatively as 593 to males 407.