162 REPORT — 1855. 



Rates of Mortality. 

 Age. Annuitants. Average. 



13 -574 -500 



23 1-507 -871 



34 ' 1170 1-087 



48 1-487 1-508 



These results have been confirmed and generalized by M. Quetelet, from the sta- 

 tistical returns for the kingdom of Belgium, the only difference being, that it is from 

 24 to 30 that the mortality is observed to diminish. Quetelet ascribes the great 

 mortality at 23 or 24 to the violence of the passions at that age ; and he holds that 

 the same results occur among females, although obscured by the increased mortality 

 among them at a later age, from dangers peculiar to the sex. 



If these views of M. Quetelet be correct, the course of mortality just described 

 ought not to be considered as anomalous, but, on the contrary, as the regular course 

 of mortality resulting from the constitution of human nature, of which the passions 

 form an essential part. The preponderance of statistical evidence, however, is on 

 the opposite side of the question. The strongest by far is that of the Registrar- 

 General, as given in the table already quoted, which shows a progressively increasing 

 mortality from 13 years upwards, both on the average and among males alone. The 

 same progression is exhibited in Mr. Milne's table of mortality for Sweden and 

 Finland, and in Mr. Ansell's tables of the mortality among the members of the 

 Friendly Societies throughout England. 



If, again, the course of mortality exhibited in Mr. Finlayson's tables be regarded, 

 not as normal, but as exceptional, it is clear that some other cause for it must be 

 sought than one of universal operation, — the influence of passions inherent in human 

 nature. A more probable cause the author held to be one which has no existence 

 in childhood, and scarcely in boyhood, but which comes into operation at the com- 

 mencement of active or independent life, from about 14 to 25 years of age, arising 

 somewhat earlier among the poorer classes, and later among the wealthy ; and 

 among the latter existing exclusively among males, and attaining a much more for- 

 midable height than among the poor. It is at this period that children, who had 

 been previously provided for by their parents, are called upon to provide for them- 

 selves. They had previously been nourished like branches on the parent stem ; they 

 are now severed from that stem, and if they fail to take root or to derive nourish- 

 ment from the soil in which they are placed, they speedily decay. It is exactly so 

 with young men on first establishing themselves in the world. We then see the 

 effects of neglected education, vicious habits, bad dispositions, and ungovernable 

 passions, which render them unable to avail themselves of resources within their 

 reach ; but we see also what is more to be deplored, the effects of over-population 

 and of other political causes which tend to straiten subsistence, and thus prevent 

 the rising generation from obtaining a footing in society. It is this struggle, or 

 rather the anxiet}', fatigues, dangers and privations attendant upon it, that are the 

 true causes of the increased mortality which marks the commencement of adult life. 

 This was illustrated by the increased mortality that takes place among young medi- 

 cal men between 22 and 30 years of age. Now, the government annuitants were 

 placed in early life in circumstances not dissimilar; and the effect of these circum- 

 stances in producing the irregular course of mortality among them is well seen by 

 contrasting it with the mortality regularly increasing with years observed among the 

 members of friendly societies, according to Mr. Ansell's tables ; for the circumstances 

 of the latter were less conducive to health and comfort than those of the former, 

 with the exception of the important circumstance, that the latter, as members of a 

 friendly society, were not only able to maintain themselves, but to make a provision 

 for a time of sickness, or a posthumous provision for those related to them in the 

 event of death. 



To illustrate the course of life and rates of mortality among the lower orders of 

 society, reference was made to Mr. Nelson's ' Contributions to Vital Statistics,' 

 derived, like the work of Mr. Ansell, from the recoids of the friendly societies of 

 England. The conclusion was, that while there is among those following certain 

 employments an increase in the rate of mortalitj', there is not among them, gene- 

 rally, any such increase in the rate of mortality at the commencement of adult life, 



