HUMAN SELECTION. 105 



intensify the selection thus exercised. It is well known that 

 females are largely in excess of males in our existing population, 

 and this fact, if it were a necessary and permanent one, would 

 tend to weaken the selective agency of women, as it undoubtedly 

 does now. But there is good reason to believe that it will not be a 

 permanent feature of our population. The births always give a 

 larger proportion of males than females, varying from three and 

 a half to four per cent. But boys die so much more rapidly than 

 girls that when we include all under the age of five the numbers are 

 nearly equal. For the next five years the mortality is nearly the 

 same in both sexes ; then that of females preponderates up to thirty 

 years of age ; then up to sixty that of men is the larger, while for 

 the rest of life female mortality is again greatest. The general 

 result is that at the ages of most frequent marriage from twenty 

 to thirty-five females are between eight and nine per cent in 

 excess of males. But during the ages from five to thirty-five we 

 find a wonderful excess of male deaths from two preventible 

 causes " accident " and " violence." For the year 1888 the deaths 

 from these causes in England and Wales were as follows : 



Males (0 to 35 years), 4,158. 

 Females (5 to 35 years), 1,100.* 



Here we have an excess of male over female deaths in one year 

 of 3,058, all between the ages of five and thirty-five, a very large 

 portion of which is no doubt due to the greater risks run by men 

 and boys in various industrial occupations. In a state of society 

 in which the bulk of the population were engaged in industrial 

 work it is quite certain that almost all these deaths would be pre- 

 vented, and thus bring the male population more nearly to an 

 equality with the female. But there are also many unhealthy 

 employments in which men are exclusively engaged, such as the 

 grinders of Sheffield, the white-lead manufacturers, and many 

 others ; and many more men have their lives shortened by labor 

 in unventilated workshops, to say nothing of the loss of life in 

 war. When the lives of all its citizens are accounted of equal 

 value to the community, no one will be allowed to suffer from 

 such preventible causes as these ; and this will still further reduce 

 the mortality of men as compared with that of women. On the 

 whole, then, it seems highly probable that in the society of the 

 future the superior numbers of males at birth will be maintained 

 throughout life, or, at all events, during what may be termed the 

 marriageable period. This will greatly increase the influence of 

 women in the improvement of the race. Being a minority, they 

 will be more sought after, and will have a real choice in marriage, 

 which is rarely the case now. This actual minority being fur- 



* Annual Report of the Registrar General, 1888, pp. 106-7. 



