TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 151, 
adverting to the successful means that have been adopted for the prevention of disease 
and the greatly increased value of human life thence resulting, he intimated his in- 
tention of following up the important inquiries now commenced with a special view 
to the subject of life assurance. 
Remarks on the present Condition of the City and Neighbourhood of Malaga, 
and on the Preparation of Raisins. By A. Mitwarp. 
The author describes in succession the main points of interest in the history, geo- 
logical constitution, climate and agriculture, and enters fully into the cultivation of 
the Vine, and the trade which this supports. The condition of the people is also in- 
vertieated, The detailed information thus given cannot be fairly represented by an 
abstract. 
Mortality of the Provident Classes in this Country and on the Continent. 
By ¥.G. P. Netson. 
In the present contribution it is intended to exhibit the rate of mortality which 
prevails among the wealthy, the middle and the provident classes of this country, and 
of the continent. : 
England and Wales are the only portions of the United Kingdom in which public 
mortuary registers are kept, and, consequently, in which the rate of mortality of the 
whole population can be accurately measured. In the other divisions of the king- 
dom, the rate of mortality is known only inferentially, and not by direct observation, 
and nowhere do the public records afford the means by which to determine the dura- 
tion of life in particular classes of the community. There are, however, other sources 
from which much information may be derived. 
_ In the year 18438, a report was made, by a committee of actuaries, on the mortality, 
among the persons assured by seventeen of the principal assurance companies of this 
country, and these persons may be fairly considered to belong to the middle and 
upper classes of society; and at various periods since the year 1824, inquiries have 
been made into the rate of mortality among the members of friendly societies, inclu- 
ding the more industrious and prudential of the working and the labouring portion 
of the people. One important result deriyed from these investigations is, that while 
the mortuary registers show a certain rate of mortality for the whole population of 
England and Wales, the evidence furnished by the facts constituting the other body 
of information clearly proves the mortality of the middle and upper classes to be above, 
and that of the industrious working classes to be below, the ratio for the country ge- 
nerally. This conclusion forms an important consideration in all sanitary inquiries, 
and, by an obvious inference, determines in what class or section of the people the 
excessive rate of mortality prevails. For other reasons, however, it is a subject of 
first importance to understand clearly the rate of mortality among the middle and 
upper classes. 
The Journal of the Statistical Society contains a valuable body of evidence on this 
uestion, which goes to proye, that among the peerage, the country gentry, and the 
frofessipnal classes, the rate of mortality is higher than that of the country generally, 
and, as already remarked, the report by the committee of actuaries shows, that among 
the lives assured by the public companies of this country, the mortality is also not less_ 
than that of the general population. 
In support of the results derived from this latter hody of facts, there is abundant 
collateral proof; but it has been thought desirable to test them, if possible, by facts 
originating in quite an independent source, and, with this view, an analysis has been 
made of the experience of some of the life assurance offices in Germany, one of which, 
the Gotha Society, the largest in the world, had, in the twenty-one years ending Ja- 
nuary 1850, assured 22,063 lives; and there were, in the beginning of this year, sub- 
sisting assurances on no less than 15,471 of these lives. 
Column 3 of the following table shows, that if the rate of mortality in the So- 
ciety had been the same as among the male population of England and Wales, the 
total number of deaths would have been 3196-59, while the expected mortality by 
the tables of the Society was 3194; but the actual mortality had been 3144. It is 
