PRESIDENTS ADDRESS—SECTION H. WS, 
province which carries an estimated number of 1,036,119 persons 
{1887) on 88,000 square miles, of which 497,000 live in five 
cities, the largest having a population of 391,000. England is a 
country which carries 28 millions on 58,172 square miles, of 
whom 9,244,099 live in 28 towns, of which the largest has a 
population of 4} millions. This difference in density, and a 
dozen other differences involved in it, render the comparison 
misleading; and indeed a careful reader would find food for 
reflection if he observed that, notwithstanding these flatteries, the 
infantile death-rate of Melbourne and suburbs is (mean of 10 
years 1878-87) 169-7, and higher by 17:7 in the 1000 than that 
of London (mean of 10 years 1877-86, 152), although the latter 
city carries more than ten times as many people on less than 
half the area.* 
I need not press these particular examples farther, having 
chosen them, indeed, chiefly because Mr. Hayter’s eminence in 
several branches of statistical enquiry goes far to render them 
conclusive. After repeating, therefore, that all our statistical 
reports are open to similar criticism, I just mention those of the 
Registrar-General for Tasmania (Mr. Robert M. Johnston, 
F.L.S.) I regard the labours of this gentleman with respect, and 
all that I wish to say of them is this: he shows not only that he 
is very well aware of all the points to which I am now in cursory 
fashion drawing attention, but that while writing he has them 
constantly in mind ; yet he falls, after all, into what I may call 
the familiar error of the professed statist. He strives to supply 
the place of observed facts, which are wanting, by allowance and 
by calculation. Now, I do not contend that such methods are 
unjustifiable or always profitless. Among statists they may 
sometimes serve a useful purpose ; and indeed, were the facts 
unascertainable, we might all of us have to be content with 
cautious speculation, and we might derive from it that support 
which is afforded by theory when facts begin to fail. But that 
is not the present case: the facts are accessible, and their obser- 
vation is in many respects a mere matter of suitable organisation. 
That being so, I do not know but our statists are seriously in 
error to amuse us with speculations which are largely of theoretical 
bases, and which those unacquainted with statistics cannot 
effectually scrutinise. 
I just now called such errors the familiar errors of the professed 
statist ; and they are not confined to the gentlemen who comment 
on our records here. The Government Statistician of New South 
Wales (Mr. T. A. Coghlan, Assoc. M. Inst. C.E.), reproduces in 
his volume of ‘The Wealth and Progress of New South Wales” 
for 1888-9 the mean after life-time at ages calculated for the 
people of Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria, taken 
* London: seilicet, Registration London; now the “County of London (for adminis 
trative purposes).” 
