78 Mr W. Fraser 07i the History and Constitution of 



life among the members of Friendly Societies than they would do among the 

 higher classes ; but does not think that there is any dilterence in the duration 



of human life since the time when the Northampton table was framed 



Page 87. 



Dr Augustus Boxssie Granville, professionally connected with two extensive 

 lying-in institutions, and with the Infirmary for Sick Children, gave some 

 valuable and interesting information as to the earliest ages at which women 

 marry, — the period they are most prolific, and when they cease to bear child- 

 ren,i — the average number of still-born and living children to each marriage, 

 —the periods ot infant life when the greatest mortality prevails, &c. " The 

 numbers of married women, to whom my observation has extended, as far as 

 the statements in the books before the Committee bear me out, are 7,060 at 

 the Westminster General Dispensary in seven years and a quarter ; 2,755 in 

 three years at the Benevolent Institution ; and, in reference to the children 

 at both these institutions 9,000 ; while at the Royal Infirmary for Sick Child- 

 ren, 5,040 is the number as stated before ; giving a general total of observa- 

 tions, amounting to 24,450." We must delay till a future opportunity a full 

 detail of the results of Dr Granville's investigations ; but he states that, 

 in 1818, " I made a calculation referable to about 400 women, whom I had 

 closely questioned respecting miscarriages they might have had ; the re- 

 sults which that examination gave me was, that, among the class of the poor, 

 1 woman in 3 who is pregnant invariably miscarries. After a lapse of seven 

 years, I picked out, without reference to age, or any thing else, 840 other 

 women, attendant on another medical charity under my care, different from 

 that which had supplied the number obtained seven years before ; and, on 

 calculating from their answers to the same question respecting miscarriage, 

 the results of those answers, I found that, in both institutions, though the 

 poor are resident in different parts of the town, but of the same class in life, 

 precisely the same proportion resulted from the calculation, viz. that 1 in 3 

 miscarried, passing over the number of women who might have been exa- 

 mined during the intermediate period of seven years on the vsame subject." — 

 Pages 84, 85. 



May 4 — Mr John Finlaison having on a former day received the books of 

 Dr Granville, with a view to calculating results that might be useful for the 

 purposes of the Committee, he now gave in a paper containing these results, 

 as calculated from a careful analysis of those registers. Whence " it appears 

 that the mortality among infant life, in the class of poor people, is very great, 

 so much so, that out of every 1000 births, only 542 infants survive the period of 

 nursing, or, in other words, are alive at the time of the mother's next lying- 

 in. It appears further, that, for whatever period child-bearing goes on 

 among the lower classes in London, up to the twentieth year of parturition 

 inclusive, the number of births are invariably constant at the rate of two in 

 four years ; while the number of children reared and alive at the period of 

 the mother's next lying-in, is also invariably constant at the ratio of one in 

 every four years." — " It does not appear that any material observation re- 

 sults from the age at which marriage is contracted on the side of the female, 

 with this exception, that, when marriage is formed very young, the births 

 are not so quick as when marriage is formed at maturer years. For example, 

 while 400 females, married under 17, would, in each year, from the period of 

 parturition, have 182 births; 400 females, married between 28 and 33, would 

 have 23C births, because these last happened in the earlier years of marriage ; 

 but the projwrtion of children which the one and the other class would be 

 able to rear, would be just the same." — It is added, that these observations 

 apply exclusively to the lower orders in London, from which class the regis- 

 ters were framed — Page 90. 



Such was the principal information obtained by the Committee of 1 825, re- 

 lative to the births and mortality of this country ; but it is proper to remark, 

 that these subjects did not form a primary object of this inquiry — endowments 

 for children, the average rate of sickness, and the more minute details of the 

 ra^iagement of Friendly Societies, being the points, which the Committee 



