moyenne, in the earlier tables, represents some very different fact from that which the later tables indicate, as it would be inadmissible to suppose that there had been a gain of 16 years average vitality to the English population, or of 15 years to the French, within a period of less than a century. These tables, therefore, will not furnish us with any basis of comparison in respect to the average duration of life.

We must consequently have recourse to the comparative rate of mortality, if this can be ascertained with any degree of accuracy. If it should appear that the rate of mortality has gradually decreased during the last century, the average duration of life will have reciprocally increased during that period, though not in so great a ratio; for, as already observed, in a community where the annual births exceed the annual deaths considerably, which is the case both in England and in France, not only the actual population, but the proportion of young persons in it, must necessarily be augmented. Thus it is found from observation, that the people are younger in England than in France or Sweden, in accordance with the corresponding preponderance of births over deaths in the former country. It will therefore be impossible to attribute the diminished rate of mortality, where it is very remarkable, to any thing but a

48

MORTALITY AMONGST CHILDREN.

decided improvement in the vitality of the youthful population, which of course implies an augmentation of the average duration of human life. A nation thus circumstanced will continue to accumulate a greater number of efficient lives. I may observe, by the way, how very important the question of the employment of children in factories becomes in connection with the period of life over which the efficiency of the labour of a population may be supposed to extend.

There can be little doubt that the mortality amongst children is not quite so great as was formerly the case, when the means of preserving. them by good nursing and medical skill were not so well understood. But in comparing the mortality of this part of the population, two errors are to be guarded against. All the births are not registered in the annual tables, even under the present more stringent system of police in this respect: this was even more the case formerly, as there is not the same domestic necessity for registering a birth as a death: the deaths, therefore, in the first year, will have occurred out of more than the number of births returned, and the real proportionate mortality will have been less than the apparent one. This remark applies more strongly to the early registers of births and deaths; as the system of registration is now so much more complete, we must make considerable

allowance for the greater accuracy of modern returns in any comparative reasoning. Again, in reference to calculations from the ages at death alone, we must not overlook a possible error, if the births should have exceeded the deaths annually. The deaths, for instance, of children under one year of age in England, were 74,210 out of a total number of 347,847 deaths in 1841. But it must not be inferred that 74,210 out of 347,847 children died in the first year, because out of 347,847 deaths, 74,210 were those of children under one year. Nothing would be more erroneous, since, as observed in the Registrar General's Fifth Report, the deaths occurred out of a number certainly not less, and probably more, than 512,000: for, although all the births are not registered, the births of 512,158 children were registered in 1841, and 502,303 in 1840.

A reason has already been suggested for the great excess of mortality in the earlier ages of the Northampton Table, which represented that more than half the number born died during the first five years of life, while Duvillard's table does not give much more than two fifths as the proportion. But even Duvillard, in considering the population as stationary, would have assumed the number of deaths to be identical with the number of births, and would consequently have

E

exaggerated the proportion of deaths at an early age.

We have, however, trustworthy data to show that the rate of mortality has decreased in this country during the last 100 years. Thus, the population abstracts of England and Wales, extending over a period from 1720 to 1820, furnish us with the average annual numbers of the baptisms and burials. Similar documents, collected at the respective censuses of 1801, 1811, and 1821, furnish the estimated population at the end of each decennial period, and the returned baptisms; from which it appears that the returned baptisms, at those periods, bore very nearly a constant proportion to the estimated population. Hence, supposing the annual average baptisms in each of the above periods to bear a given ratio to the respective population, and the returned burials to represent a similar constant proportion of the annual deaths, we should be enabled to measure with sufficient accuracy the variation in the mortality. It thus appears, that out of the same amount of population, whatever may have been that which corresponded to 1000 baptisms, there died annually,

There can be no doubt, therefore, that there has been a very great diminution in the rate of mortality in England and Wales during the last 100 years; and, as the observations which determined, that the ratio which the baptisms bore to the estimated population was 1 to 35 with a very slight fractional variation, were made at three different periods during the present century, we may rest satisfied that there can be no great error in the calculation from overlooking a possible increase in the proportion of baptisms by others than ministers of the Established Church.

Although, therefore, we must make a considerable allowance for the increased proportion of young lives, which would somewhat diminish the average age of the whole community, yet the very great difference of mortality will warrant us in concluding from the above table, that the average duration of human life in England and Wales has received a very decided augmenta