330 Mr. Lubbock on the Comparison of 



Equitable Society would be most valuable, if we were acquainted 

 with all the details concerning it. 



Mr. Finlaison has veiy recently published extensive Tables 

 of mortality formed from the Government Tontines and An- 

 nuitants, which are rendered equally valuable by the accuracy 

 of the materials from which they have been deduced, and the 

 very great care and attention which has been bestowed on them 

 by the author. Mr. Finlaison has done me the favor to prepare 

 for me a summary of these Tables, which is to be found in 

 Table V. in a form in which it may be easily compared with the 

 other Tables which I have given. 



Mr. Finlaison (in his report to the Lords of the Treasury) 

 explains at length the manner in which he made use of the 

 records of the Tontines. Mr. Finlaison observes "that the facts 

 shown in these observations bear conclusive testimony that the 

 rate of mortality in England has, during the last century, di- 

 minished in a very important degree, on each sex equally, but 

 not by equal gradations, nor equally at all periods of life ; and 

 that while in regard to the males it seems in early and middling 

 life to have remained for a long time as it stood about rifty 

 years ago; in respect of the females it has during the same time 

 visibly and progressively diminished to this day by slight but 

 .still sensible gradations." This fact is at variance with the 

 opinion that the improvement which has taken place in life is 

 to be attributed to the introduction of vaccination. Epidemics 

 however are of much less frequent occurrence in England than 

 they were formerly, which circumstance must tend materially 

 to diminish the rate of mortality. 



The great plague years in London were 1592, 1593, 1603, 

 1625, 1636 and 1665, in which the burials were as follows : 



