26 THE FALL OF THE BIRTH-RATE 



more Registration Districts (as in the case of Ken- 

 sington and Paddington). The figures for 1911 must 

 also be used with a good deal of caution, since in that 

 year for the first time births in lying-in institutions 

 were as far as possible transferred to the parents' 

 areas of residence: this alteration will have largely 

 affected St Marylebone, the area in which Queen 

 Charlotte's Lying-in Hospital is situated, and prob- 

 ably the irregularity of the data is to be ascribed to 

 that cause*. 



The districts are arranged in the order of the num- 

 ber of female domestic servants employed, per thou- 

 sand of the population, in 1901, taking this as a 

 measure of the social standing of the district, so that 

 the fertilities of upper-class and lower-class districts 

 can be compared. It will be seen at once that in 1871 

 the differences were by no means regular or striking. 

 The fertilities of Hampstead and of Kensington and 

 Paddington, for example, exceed those of Southwark 

 and of Shoreditch, in spite of the former standing at 

 the top of the list in order of social scale, and the 

 latter at the bottom. In 1901 matters were quite 

 different. The districts at the top of the list show 

 very low values of the fertility coefficient, while those 

 at the bottom have practically maintained the values 

 of 1871. In 1911 this result is, if anything, clearer: 

 the values of the fertility coefficient run rather more 

 uniformly from top to bottom. Contrasting the three 

 districts at the top (avoiding Marylebone) with the 

 five at the bottom, the average values of k run 



1871 1901 1911 



Top three 1-47 1-13 i-io 



Bottom five 1-54 1-54 i'47 



* There were 219 legitimate births in the hospital in 1871, and 662 in 

 1901, and this increase will have contributed to the stabilisation of the 

 fertility in 1871-1901. 



