Registrar-Generals-Department-Annual-report-1961-1962 — Page 40

endeavours to ascertain the correct age, and the figures given for the various groups are probably pretty fair approximations.

89. Statistics of the causes of the death registered may be found in the Annual Departmental Report of the Director of Medical and Health Services.

Post Registration of Births

90. Until 1932 there were no facilities provided in the New Territories for the registration of births, and anyone wishing to register a birth there had to register it in Hong Kong or Kowloon. The result was that until 1932 very few births in the villages were registered. In that year facilities were provided for registration at various places in the New Territories, but a great many villagers still neglected to register the births of their children. Under modern conditions a birth certificate has, at least for the young, become practically essential, and for many years past there has been a constant flow of applications to post-register births in the New Territories. To deal with these three mobile teams have been formed, which visit outlying villages according to a regular programme and deal with cases in order of the dates of application except where a certificate is urgently required for a special purpose.

91. A fee of $10 is payable for post-registration more than a year after the date of birth, and stamp duty of $3 is payable on each support- ing statutory declaration. In the course of the year the three teams collected a total of $29,391 in respect of stamp duty on such declarations. 92. During 1961-62 5,574 births were post-registered more than one year after the date of birth, as follows:

General Register Office ...

New Territories

979

Yuen Long District

1,452

Tai Po District

1,994

-- ་

Sai Kung and Island Districts

871

Tsuen Wan District

278

4,595

5,574

The 979 births post-registered at the General Register Office were partly in respect of cases where the parents had neglected to register the birth, and partly in respect of cases where the birth was believed to have been registered, but owing to the loss during the war of the register in ques- tion and also of the birth certificate issued at the time, no record of the birth was extant. Table XXIX shows the number of births post-

30

Page 40Page 41