5SS 



Remarks on Friendly Societies. 



[June, 



considered more accurate. The Carlisle tables accord more closely with 

 the results obtained by Mr. Finlaison, than any other. This gentleman 

 is the actuary of the National Debt Office, and has been employed for 

 six years in investigating the true law of mortality, and the difference 

 of duration of life between the two sexes. One observation was made 

 on twenty-five thousand people who were either nominees in tontines, 

 or life annuities ; these were persons in the upper classes of the commu- 

 nity. Another observation was made on seventy-five thousand men 

 belonging to Chelsea and Greenwich hospitals. Much valuable informa- 

 tion on this important subject has been obtained by the " Highland 

 Society of Scotland," which, with some difficulty, collected returns of 

 the length of life, and the duration of sickness between given periods 

 of age, from more than seventy societies. 



It is not quite determined that sickness and the duration of life bear 

 an exact proportion to each other, although the observations have been 

 pressed very close. It must be remembered that some districts are less 

 licaltliy than others, some trades productive of sickness, and that crowded 

 cities subject people to more accidents and causes of ill-health, and are 

 not favourable to longevity. Perhaps a census of the population, not 

 only as to numbers and sexes, but to the age of each individual, every 

 seven years, for three or more periods, would facilitate the arrival 

 at a more correct result, and so enable the community to reap advan- 

 tages from the precision of the calculations on such extensive data. It 

 is the opinion of Mr. Finlaison, that if ten thousand persons are living 

 at the age of twenty and ten thousand at the age of forty-eight, then the 

 same number of each will die annually, but the quantity of sickness 

 among the latter number greatly preponderates, and so renders the pro- 

 portional payments for relief during sickness much higher at that age. 

 We subjoin the following tables, which will interest our readers. 



A Table exhibiting the law of sickness, with reference to an individual, 

 from twenty to seventy years of age ; or the average duration of 

 sickness endured by an individual in each year, from twenty to seventy 

 years of age, shewn in weeks, and decimals of weeks. This table is 

 the result of the calculations made on the returns to 

 Society of Scotland. 



the Highland 



The data of the foregoing table when applied to sickness in I.,ondon, 

 or in unhealthy districts, may be deemed rather too low; as the results 

 from it would place the insurers in jeopardy, it is safer to assume in 

 practice rather higher data. 



