Mr. Watt on the Vital Statistics of five large Towns of Scotland. 116 



I took an opportunity of bringing this subject under the considera- 

 tion of the Statistical Section of the British Association, at their 

 meeting in Glasgow (1840), in a paper which I read, giving a com- 

 parison of the Vital Statistics of Edinburgh and Glasgow. A com- 

 mittee of the Association was appointed, and funds voted for the 

 further prosecution of this subject in Scotland. The magistrates and 

 town council of Edinburgh having also placed funds at mj disposal, 

 to cover the expenses of collecting materials, to enable me to draw up 

 a paper on the Vital Statistics of that city, for a series of years, I 

 took upon myself the labour of accumulating the facts, and construct- 

 ing Tables of Marriages and Deaths, for five of the principal towns of 

 Scotland, together with Abstracts of the Births recorded, (incomplete 

 as the Registers of Births are,) and of exhibiting some of the most 

 important deductions to bo drawn from them in the form of a report, 

 which, with some curtailments that I regret were found necessary from 

 want of space, is now published in the Transactions of the Association 

 for 1842. 



The principal results which I have deduced may be acceptable to 

 the members of this society, more especially to those of the Statistical 

 Section, who may have an opportunity of extending these researches, 

 and of advancing our knowledge of the social condition of the people ; 

 and also of devising the best means of arresting, in its progress, that 

 retrograde movement in the moral and physical condition of our town 

 population, to which public attention has lately been so properly directed. 



MARRIAGES. 



From the facts which have been collected, (Report, pp. 135 — 141,) 

 we find that there is a greater proportion of the male than of the 

 female population married in all the towns, for which data have been 

 obtained ; yet, it seems, tliat in Edinburgh and Leith, there is 2*41 

 per cent more females than males married. In Perth, there is 5*66 

 per cent more females than males married. Still it appears, that in 

 Edinburgh and Leith there is 0-287 per cent more of the male than 

 of the female population married; and in Perth, there is 0*113 per 

 cent more of the male than of the female population married. This 

 arises from there being a much larger proportion of females than 

 males residing in these towns. According to the census of 1841, 

 ihere resided in Edinburgh and Leith 123*40 females for every 100 

 males, and in Perth by the same census, there were 115*59 females 

 for every 100 males. In Glasgow and Dundee, however, there are 

 more males than females married, both in the actual amount, and in 

 the relative proportion they bear to the male and female population 

 of these towns respectively. In Glasgow, while there is 0*167 per 

 cent more of the male than of the female population married, there 

 is 0*887 per cent more males than females married. And in Dundee, 

 while there is 0*318 per cent more of the male than of the female 



