Laws of Mortality in Europe in the last Half Century. 281 



Mortality at Different Ages. 



Old State in 10 years. New State in 7 years. 



From birth to the age of 10, 50.9 in 100 43.8 in 100 



60, 74.4 .... 67.5 



. 60, 81.0 .... 75.6 



Proportion of deaths, 1 : 30.2 1 : 39.9 



births, 1 : 25.7 1 : 31.7 



marriages, 1 : 111.3 1 : 135.3 



Fecundity, - - 4.4 3.9 



Now, if we bring in connexion with these new laws of morta- 

 lity, the political changes which have taken place in Europe 

 within these forty years, and especially in France, we shall per- 

 haps be correct, while at the same time it will afford us plea- 

 sure, in thinking that good institutions and well regulated go- 

 vernments alone have this happy privilege, that, under their pa- 

 ternal influence, human life is preserved and prolonged, while 

 it is consumed, and is quickly extinguished, by injustice and 

 oppression. 



We had concluded this note, when M. Bureau de la Malle, 

 who is at this moment employed in very extensive researches 

 regarding the ancient population of Italy, communicated to us 

 the following result : 



His numerous readings have satisfied him, that the senate 

 first, and afterwards the Roman emperors, did not neglect in 

 their administration, any of the statistical accounts which seve- 

 ral modern states collect at the present day, with so much pains 

 and accuracy. He has even been enabled, by means of the 

 various documents furnished by the digeste and the Roman 

 laws, to reproduce the complete tables of the requisitions which 

 the censors addressed to the citizens, and it is found that they 

 entered into details in this respect, much more extended than 

 ours, regarding the sexes, ages, professions, the different kinds 

 of cultivation, the number of slaves, &c. 



But what is more interesting still, M. Dureau has discovered 

 in the Pandects the calculations of the probability of life for all 

 ages, and he has thus obtained proof that the mean duration of 

 life in Italy was thirty years in the reign of Alexander Severus, 

 toward the end of the third century ; and it is known that this 

 was also nearly its duration fifty years ago (twenty-eight years.) 



