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# SECTION II.
## PUBLIC HEALTH.
### GENERAL REMARKS.
60. One of the most important events of the year from the public health point of view was the Census which was taken on March the 7th. According to the Census figures the population of the City of Victoria was overestimated in 1930 by something like 40 per cent and that of Kowloon and New Kowloon by 20 per cent. The floating population as counted numbered only 75,250 as compared with an estimate made for the middle of 1930 of 109,050.
61. The discrepancy in the urban figures is most disappointing especially in view of the fact that for the last four years the estimates of urban population have been based on figures furnished by a restricted census carried out each year by Inspectors of the Sanitary Department. The occupants of 100 houses in each of the 22 districts were counted and averages obtained. The estimated population of the district was the total of the houses multiplied by the average figure. Considering the movement of population it is difficult to conceive a more accurate method of estimation.
62. With regard to the floating population the estimates were made by multiplying the number of junks and sampans registered at the Harbour Office, some 20,000 odd, by an arbitrary figure of 5. The occupants of the boats vary from four to forty. The Superintendent of Census states that the fishing fleet and larger junks which had been in port during Chinese New Year were conspicuously absent on Census night. Taking everything into consideration the estimate for the floating population is probably nearer the actual facts than the census figures.
63. There are those who believe that the Census figures for the urban population understate the facts, it being alleged that numbers of the Chinese of the lower classes refused to enter their names on the forms supplied in an effort to avoid having details of themselves entered on official registers. There is, however, no proof of this for the chief enumerators for the census were the same Sanitary Inspectors who made the restricted census for the estimates, and they would be in a better position than any other to know whether there had been any evasions.
64. The population having been overestimated in recent years it follows that real death rates for the Colony were considerably higher than those published in the Annual Reports and that the state of the Public Health was not so good as had been supposed. The crude death rate for 1930 was not 15.14 per mille as published but 21.38 per mille and the death rates for the various diseases were higher in proportion.
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