with the Society to send a similar circular and schedule to all Ministers in England, Scotland, and Wales, of 10 years st and upwards, requesting them, as a favour to the Society as to myself to furnish me with the statistics of their fa Wishing, if possible, to compare the mortality of English Scottish Children, and in order to obtain a larger number o from Scotland than the Ministers of the Baptist denomi could supply, I addressed my circular to all the Ministers Independent denomination in that part of the Kingdom; had to abandon the attempt at making this interesting parison, being unable to obtain the dates respecting more 250 Children in Scotland altogether; suffice it to say th far as the statistics serve, they strengthen the opinion, he many individuals, that Scottish children, especially the boy more robust than English. To all who did not reply wit fortnight I sent a reminder; and the final result, after no amount of trouble and correspondence, was, that about three-fo of the schedules issued were returned to me, giving particul 1153 additional children. With regard to the schedules that not returned, I have good reason to believe that the Min to whom they were addressed were mostly unmarried, or if ma were without families; and I do not think the results are mu at all, affected by the absence of returns from the few who disinclined to give me the information; in proof of which op I may say that only three refusals were received, and that pre to combining the facts obtained from the Members of the Soc with those obtained elsewhere, I tested the trustworthiness of latter, as compared with the former; and found, to my satisfac that the two sets of results were in sufficiently close agreeme entitle the Combined Experience to confidence. For instance mortality percent amongst the Children of Members of Society was, during the first year of life, 10-843 for the Boys, 8.517 for the Girls, as against 10·042 and 8·115 respectively the Combined Experience. The process of taking out the age the children, either at death, or on the date of the return if t living, was performed by myself, and was subsequently veri by another person. Abstracts of the ages thus found were t made; the greatest care being employed in arranging the det as well as in the subsequent computations, and the final result

у

the enquiry are given in the statistical and monetary tables appended hereto. These results, then, exhibit the mortality which prevailed amongst 1653 Children, representing the families of 313 Protestant Dissenting Ministers, residing in all parts of England, Scotland and Wales. The observations are not continued after 30 years of age, under which age there are 22,502 years of life and 378 deaths tabulated.

One question of importance,-the social position of the parents of these children,—may with propriety be referred to here. Many of the Ministers from whom returns were obtained are in the receipt of very good, though not extravagant, incomes, most of them being in moderately comfortable circumstances. No doubt some are not so fortunately situated, but I am satisfied that these form but a small proportion of the whole; and I think it may be asserted, with considerable confidence, that the Ministers who have contributed the materials for these tables may, taken together, be regarded as middle class men. There is no reason to suppose that the health of their children has been in any way influenced by their professional avocation or social position; on the contrary, I believe that the probabilities of life deduced from their experience may be fairly considered to represent those of middle class children generally.

The relative number of the sexes born is that of 104-58 Males to 100 Females, which ratio is almost identical with that of the population generally, as shown in the Registrar-General's Reports (vide 31st Report, page xii). Having the date of birth of each one of the 1653 Children, I was able to separate the first-born children from those subsequently born, and a curious fact in connection with the excess of male over female births, and one, I believe, not hitherto noticed, seems to have been brought to light by so doing. Out of 314 first-born Children, 173 were Boys, and 141 were Girls, being in the proportion of 122 to 100; whereas out of the remaining 1339 subsequently-born Children the proportion of the sexes was nearly equal, viz., 672 Boys and 667 Girls. If, as might be inferred from these statistics, the excess of male births is almost entirely restricted to first-born children, the fact should, perhaps, be taken into consideration in cases of assurance against issue-male; unless the contingency is dependent upon the son living to the age of 21, in which event the much greater probability of the first-born child being a son is counter-balanced by the heavier mortality to which that son will probably be subject,

es will be seen from the following figures •

22

12.790

140.5

Subsequently born 664.5 62 9.330 660.5 60 9.084 1325.

3.558

312.5

Irrespective of order of birth

836.5 84 10.042 801.

65 8.1151637.5

It will be noticed from the above Table that the mortali cent of the sexes during the first year after birth is, irrespec the order of birth, 10·042 for the Boys, and 8·115 for the But if we exclude the first-born children of either sex, and r the mortality of those subsequently born, it will be seen th difference, though still in favour of the female, is not nea great, being 9.330 for the boys and 9.084 for the girls, which pr tion more nearly corresponds with the difference observable mortality of the sexes at subsequent ages, as shown in the table. The inference is therefore drawn that the excessive tality amongst males generally during the first year of 1 chiefly due to the first-born boys; and to a very similar exten the excess of male births is attributable to them. The very mortality amongst first-born boys is worthy of notice, an perhaps, easily accounted for; but it is difficult to explain remarkably small mortality amongst the first-born girls; how as this anomaly occurs in the separate statistics both of the En and Scottish children, as well as in those of the children belon to the Annuity Society, and those not so belonging, it is prob notwithstanding the small number of observed facts, that we here an indication of a law of nature, which, until now, has esca observation, and which could only be thoroughly elucidated more extensive investigations, similarly conducted.

As the numbers at each age are too limited to enable m construct a mortality table for each sex separately, I have in following table combined the figures in groups of quinquen ages, keeping however ages 0, 1, and 2 to 4 distinct. The supe vitality of the female is clearly shown; the only groups in wh the female appears to be subject to a heavier mortality than male being at ages 2 to 4 and 25 to 29. In the first instance,

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difference is but small, although the peculiarity exists at the same ages in several other tables, and in the latter case the numbers subject to mortality are too few to warrant a conclusive opinion. In the case of both sexes the mortality rapidly decreases from birth till ages 10 to 14 when it reaches a minimum, after which it increases, the males presenting a maximum of mortality at ages 20 to 24, and a slightly diminished death rate at the succeeding quinquennium.

Mortality of Children of Dissenting Ministers.

Reverting to the mortality during the first year of life, irrespective of sex and order of birth, I find that of children born alive.

1.005 percent died on the day of birth,

1.996 percent died within the first week of life,

2.843 percent died within the first month of life, and 4-487 percent died within three months after birth. From this it would appear that the first three months of infant life are nearly as hazardous as the succeeding nine months, the mortality for the whole of the first year being 9.099 percent. With regard to the children dying on the same days as they were born, I believe that they were all born alive, inasmuch as their names or initials were given in each case.

Dr. Farr, in the Supplement to the Registrar-General's 25th Annual Report, refers to certain statistics which show that the mortality of infants, in France, during the years 1856-60, was within a fraction of 18 percent for the first year of life; that is, one-fifth more than the corresponding rate for England, and just

double the rate indicated by the present observations The deaths

In the English Life Table No. 3 Dr. Farr shows the r for each month of the first year of age, which enables us the following comparison. Out of a total of 100 deaths o during the first year,

Dr. Farr assigns 310 to the first month:

These statistics attribute

I

The proportions for the first month we may regard as ic and those for the first three months are very nearly the sa the figures for the first 6 months are widely different. makes the mortality for the first half of the birth-year fourths of that for the whole year, whereas the experience the proportion two-thirds only; so that whilst Dr. Farr's the second half year is but one-third of the rate for the fir the mortality of the Ministers' Children during the seco months was one-half of that during the first six months. case of the Ministers' Children I find that a marked incr mortality took place amongst the Boys at the age of nine m which increase, it has been suggested to me, is due to der This explanation as to the increase of mortality at this par period of infancy seems satisfactory, but to whatever caus due, an allowance should, I submit, be made in any table sh the mortality of each month of the first year; and I think it found upon close investigation that Dr. Farr has understat proportionate mortality for the eighth, ninth and tenth m more especially that for the ninth month.

The actual mortality percent for the four periods of six m each immediately succeeding birth are as follows:

From the above figures it is evident that any table profe to represent the mortality in the earliest years of life shoul founded upon observations commencing at the birth of each c