84 Mr W. Fraser on the Histm^y and Constitutvm of' 



the last ten years ; at least among the total number of children that came 

 before him as patients. The Doctor likewise gave some farther results of his 

 observations since 1825, which confirmed what he had then stated; and " with 

 regard to the question as to the number of children that such married women 

 may produce in a given period, I have to observe for the present, that it is a 

 curious fact, that if a woman marries at the age of twenty-one or twenty-two, 

 and is j)laced under precisely similar circumstances for the following fifteen 

 years as women at fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen, marrying at that age, may 

 be supposed to be under, will produce the same number of children as the lat- 

 ter would, though the party marry seven or eight years later ; and the reason 

 of that is this, that the latter ones, those that marry very young, cease either 

 sooner, or go a great number of years Avithout children. "When they arrive at 

 twenty or tAventy-five years of age, they will stop till about thirty,' and begin 

 again ; whereas the age of maturity at which a woman is most prolific, appears 

 to be about twenty, and there seems no stoppage, except disease steps in, go- 

 ing on regularly every two years, or if she does not suckle, every year until 

 she arrives at forty or forty-two years of age, which is the usual period for it to 

 terminate." The whole of Dr Granville's evidence is extremely interesting ; 

 but as it is not immediately connected with our present object, we cannot af- 

 ford room for a fuller detail. {Pages 40, 44.) 



May 25 — William Morgan^ Esq. actuary to the Equitable Assurance Office, 

 affirms that the Northampton tables are " certainly the most correct tables 

 for the mean duration of Ufe, in all private concerns. For the last fifty years 

 I have never used any other, and I think they are the most correct ; indeed I 

 know they are" — " in all cases between one man and another." It having 

 been stated in evidence before the last Committee on Friendly Societies, that 

 the expectation of life is now to what it was a century ago as four to three, 

 Mr Morgan was asked if he adhered to that opinion ; to which he answered 

 that he does not adhere to it, from his own experience, " because the probabili- 

 ties of life in the office, compared with those in the Northampton tables, are 

 not higher than they were fifty years ago ; indeed the very contrary." — " The 

 duration of life, in general, is a little better among females than among males, 

 but, in my opinion, not sufficient to render it necessary to compute separate 

 tables for them." He thinks the Northampton Tables are as correct tables as 

 any that can be formed, adapted to all parts and all classes of people in Eng- 

 land, but thinks they want some little addition to secure them both for pay- 

 ments on death, and for deferred annuities. He is sure the tables construct- 

 ed by Mr Davies, from the experience of the Equitable, were not founded on 

 data sufficient for constructing any tables ; as they hardly insure any lives un- 

 der 30 ; and as those tables begin in early life, a great deal must be assumed 

 where there is no data to go upon ; besides, he finds the " probability of life 

 •approaching nearer to the Northampton tables in our office, than it used to be 

 in the later periods of life ; for the Northampton tables give the decrements 

 of life as high as most tables in old age." Pages 45, 49. 



John Pensam, Esq. actuary to the Amicable Assurance Society, states that 

 they use the Northampton tables, but that the Society does not grant deferred 

 annuities. Upon a comparison of the Northampton tables with the experience 

 of the Amicable,, he found the continuance of life was materially higher than 

 that in. the tables, but which he attributes to the recency of selection, or the 

 benefit of selection rather at different ages. " I should think, in looking to 

 annuities, the longer continuance of life would make it necessary to take some 

 consideration exceeding the value of annuities by the Northampton tables." 

 Page 50. 



June 7 — John Fiidaison^ Esq. has greatly extended his observations since he 

 was before the Committee of 1825 ; has gone over, of new, the whole of the 

 calculations from which he had deduced the law of mortality, by a far more 

 elaborate process than he had resorted to before, and the result of the whole 

 has been, that the law of mortality, as originally stated by him in the tables 

 before reported, is, in every part, and in every particular, upon each sex, now 

 satisfactorily confirmed. He alludes to the table resulting from the observa- 

 tions on the government life annuitants (p. 86.), and attaches no particular im- 

 portance to the table derived from an observation on the pensioners of Chelsea 



