OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



351 



that during the eight years 1850-57, eight per cent of the births, 

 and ten (10.5) per cent of the marriages, and during the nine years 

 19)^^ - 61 , fourteen per cent of the deaths occurring in the State 

 escaped registration. These deficiencies do not appear to have been 

 uniform throughout the State, many of the towns making apparently 

 full and trustworthy returns, while those of other towns are manifestly 

 so incomplete as to be of little value. 



Few will be likely to estimate too highly the importance of a perfect 

 system for the registration of the births, the deaths, and the marriages 

 which occur in the State ; — first, historically and judicially, as facili- 

 tating the legal descent of heritable property, and as determining the 

 settlements of certain citizens (the latter now a source of frequent and 

 vexatious litigation between towns) ; and, secondly, statistically, as af- 

 fording fit material for the construction of life tables, not only for the 

 entire State, but also for different localities, classes, and pursuits, and 

 for the solution of many practical questions, the interest of which is 

 not limited to the people of our own State or hemisphere. 



Ratios of the Births, Deaths, and Marriages, annually registered in 

 Massachusetts, to 1000 Persons living at the Middle of each Tear ; 

 also, the Average, the Greatest, and the Least Ratios for England 

 for the Nineteen Year's 1838-56. 



