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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and 

 Virginia ; the Western — Arizona, British Columbia, California, Ne- 

 vada, Oregon, and Washington. This is a somewhat arbitrary divis- 

 ion, but it will serve the purpose. 



Taking the statistics of 1881, we find the membership, deaths, and 

 rate per 100 in these several groups to have been as follows : 



The apparent conclusion from this table would be that, while in 

 the Eastern, Central, and Westei'n sections the rate did not range 

 very far from the general average, in the Northern it was very much 

 below, and in the Southern very much above. Is this variation char- 

 acteristic of the localities, or is it due to some special feature of the 

 membership whose experience is tabulated ? We find that in the 

 Northern group of States and Provinces the rate is about thirty per 

 cent below the average. But in this section the society is compara- 

 tively young ; many of its branches have only been in existence a few 

 years ; and the membership is composed largely of men in the prime of 

 life, or of those who have but recently passed some test of physical 

 soundness. This might account for the lower rate of mortality. In 

 the Southern section, while there are quite a few old branches, yet in 

 many parts they are as young as in the North — the society having, 

 like all others, sufi'ered by the civil war, and having begun anew 

 during the last fifteen years. We might reasonably expect, therefore, 

 that the rate in the South, though above the average reported, is j-et 

 below the actual rate of the locality. 



In order to obtain the true death-rate of the average adult male 

 population, it is necessary to confine our investigations, if possible, to 

 those branches which have been in existence for at least the life of 

 one generation ; and which will, therefore, contain their just propor- 

 tion of aged persons. For the year 1881 the statistics were collected 

 of 425 branches in different States, which had been in existence for 

 not less than thirty-five years. In these, with a membership of 51,452, 

 there were 655 deaths, or 1-27 per 100. 



It is not possible from the returns to give anything like a correct 

 average for each State or province, or even for each of the groups 

 previously defined. In some States the membership of the older 

 lodges is too small to give results that could form the basis of a cor- 

 rect estimate ; but, by grouping some of the States in a geographical 

 classification, we may calculate the average of certain sections. Thus 



