SICK-BATJES AND DEATH-RATES. 



525 



tistics are not available for purposes of comparison without consider- 

 able labor on the part of the inquirer. 



As a contribution to this subject, I propose giving the experience 

 of the oldest, and, I believe, the largest, benefit society in North 

 America, that of the Odd-Fellows, which has been in operation sixty- 

 four years, and has a membership of about half a million. Though 

 the society has branches in South America, Australia, Germany, and 

 other places, yet the statistics I shall give will be confined to the mem- 

 bership in the United States and Canada — two countries whose cir- 

 cumstances of race, climate, and social customs are similar. 



The membership of the Society of Odd-Fellows is confined to 

 healthy white males, of the age of twenty-one and upward. When I 

 say " healthy," I mean approximately so. In some localities a medi- 

 cal certificate of good health is required from every candidate for 

 membership ; and in all cases jyrima J'acie evidence of sound physical 

 condition is a necessary prerequisite for admission. While, therefore, 

 the society may not consist of lives as carefully selected as the policy- 

 holders of an insurance company, yet they constitute a fair average of 

 the healthy male adults of the Caucasian race. And any possible in- 

 feriority to life-insurance subjects in the matter of physical health 

 will be more than balanced by the advantages resulting fi'om the com- 

 paratively high standard of morals necessary to membership in a be- 

 nevolent and moral organization. 



The death-rate of this society for the last nine yeai's has been as 

 follows : 



Average. 



•0099 

 ■0102 

 •0098 

 •0106 



The average rate for the period embraced in this table appears 

 from these figures to be less than one in 100 (.0097). But the returns 

 come from a very large section of country, with varying conditions, 

 geographical and social, which may materially affect the mortality in 

 special localities. It will be advisable, therefore, to individualize 

 more closely. For convenience, we will classify the several States and 

 Provinces into five groups. We will let the Eastern group embrace 

 Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maine, Maritime Provinces of 

 Canada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, 

 Rhode Island, and Vermont ; the Northern — Dakota, Manitoba, Mich- 

 igan, Minnesota, Montana, Ontario, Quebec, Wisconsin, and Wyo- 

 ming ; the Central — Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Ken- 

 tucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and West Virginia ; the Southern — 

 Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, 



