SOMETHING

There was a homemade bench had several piles of books on it outside the wall of a house down the road.
‘Have a look,’ I said and pulled the car over to the kerb. She got out had a rummage.
‘What’s the big one?’ I said. ‘Get it.’
‘That’ll come in handy,' she said, 'when you run out of ideas,’ passing the book read on the cover - JACK’S REFERENCE BOOK ~ AN ENCYCLOPEDIA, A MEDICAL, LEGAL, SOCIAL, EDUCATIONAL & COMMERCIAL GUIDE, A DICTIONARY. It was printed 1911 in London by T. C. & E. C. Jack, at an address I once lived.
At the flat later, I opened the book

BRISTOL, a city and port, on the Avon, on the borders of Somerset and Gloucestershire. Its trade with Ireland, Canada, West Indies, and South America is considerable and increasing. The new dock at Avonmouth, now (1906) building, at a cost of nearly 11/2 millions, will offer great facilities to shipping. The city has an ancient cathedral, which is, however, surpassed in beauty by the church of St. Mary Redcliffe; (For population, etc., see p.902.)

On page 902 the population official estimate, June, 1908, was 372,785, with the mean annual rate per 1000 of a) Births: 23.1, and b) Deaths: 13.6.