90 Mr Babbage on the proportionate number of 



The result of these several enumerations will be better seen 

 in the following table : — 



It appears, then, from an enumeration of above one million 

 illegitimate births, and fourteen million legitimate, that the 

 excess of' males above females is less amongst illegitimate than 

 amongst legitimate children. 



The climate of Naples is totally different from that of France. 

 The sands of Brandenburg and part of Prussia, as well as the 

 marshes of Westphalia, are different from either ; we cannot, 

 therefore, ascribe the fact to climate. It has been contended 

 that the enumeration itself is incorrect, because it includes 

 amongst the illegitimate all those who have been received into 

 foundling hospitals ; and it is said that there is a greater ten- 

 dency to expose female children than males, because the latter 

 are able to gain enough for their subsistence at an earlier pe- 

 riod. This circumstance does not appear to me to be suffi- 

 cient to account for the difference which occurs in so many 

 countries ; but in order to estimate its weight, we must have 

 further information as to its extent. Laplace has stated in the 

 introduction to his Theorie Analytique des Probabilites^ (p.xlvii.) 

 that from 1745 to 1809, there vvere admitted into the Found- 

 ling Hospital of Paris 163,499 boys, and 159,405 girls, the ra- 

 tio of which is nearly that of 24 to 25, whereas the proportion 

 of the sexes in the rest of the population is 22 to 21 ; and he 

 finds that there are 238 to 1 in favour of some cause produ- 

 cing this difference in the ratio. I have annexed amongst the 

 tables one of the admissions to the Foundling Hospital in Dub- 

 lin during twenty-seven years, and the difference in the propor- 

 tion of the sexes still more strongly indicates a cause. 



The number of males which are still born in Westphalia is 

 remarkable ; for every 10,000 females there are no less than 

 13,689 males , 



