The high infantile mortality betokened high infantile sickness, but of it no records have ever been kept.
CHAPTER IV
1871–1880
In 1871, the decennial Census once more afforded reliable information as to the population of London, and gave the means of ascertaining much else of the greatest value.
The population had gone up to 3,254,260 in 1871, from the 2,808,862 it had been in 1861, an increase of 445,398. But the rate of increase was declining. The decennial increase of population which had been 21·2 in 1841–1851, 18·7 in 1851–1861, had further declined to 16·1 in 1871.
The returns showed that London contained 2,055,576 persons born within its own limits, and 1,198,684 persons born outside its borders.
“Whence came these multitudes of both sexes, equal in themselves, without counting those born there, to a number greater than the inhabitants of any other European city?”
More than 607,000 of them came from the chiefly agricultural eastern, south-eastern, and south-midland counties surrounding the metropolis.