24
It must be stressed that the figures as given in Tables 7 and 8 are very approximate. They probably under-estimate the numbers of deaths of very young infants. They are likely, therefore, to be conservative: the average age of death, shown on Tables 7 and 8 as 22/24, may well, in fact, have been as low as 18/20. It can, however, be accepted that the average age of death is unlikely to have been higher than 22/24.
Clearly these figures, because of the serious under-reporting of very young children, cannot be used to provide detailed statistics of infant mortality in the New Territories. They do, however, show that about a fifth at least of all children died before reaching school age, and that about half of all children died before reaching marriageable age. They demonstrate that infant mortality was a major social factor, and permit debate only on the detail of incidence.
It is worth noting some points disclosed by Tables 3-6. Table 5 shows a slight upturn in the population recorded in 1911 for both males and females at ages 60-65; this is clearly a reaction to those elderly villagers who claimed they were "more than one cycle old," and who were consequently all entered as 61 years old. In 1921 this unthinking reaction was not followed: actual ages were identified and entered.
Because of the loss of Tsuen Wan district to Southern District, the 1921 figures for Northern District should have been very slightly lower than those for 1911. This is the case for both males and females older than about 50. Since it is this elderly section of the population which is the most sedentary, these figures are likely to be accurate. However, between the ages of 35 and 50, for both males and females, the 1921 records show higher populations for Northern District than in 1911. This can probably be ascribed in part to villagers being caught by the census when returning to worship at their ancestral graves during the Ching Ming Festival, as postulated by the 1921 Census officer, and in part to greater efforts being made in 1921 to capture the boat people. In addition, political troubles in the border area of China had caused large numbers of refugees to cross over into the New Territories in 1920. While most of these refugees had returned to China at the end of 1920, it is likely that some remained in the New Territories, to be caught by the enumerators in Northern District in 1921.
57
Between the ages of 20 and 35, the 1911 figures for the Northern District are higher than the 1921 figures, as expected, but the very