590 Remarks on Friendly Societies. [June, 



the side would be allowed to accumulate. If the insurers were older, of 

 course their payments to guarantee them the same sum a week while 

 sick, would be necessarily larger, because as age advances sickness 

 increases, and consequently the demands on the fund must be more 

 frequent. 



The calculations of these societies have, in many instances, particularly 

 in the Hampshire and Southwell, been extended to insurances for sums 

 to be paid to children on their attaining a certain age, and thus prepar- 

 ing the means of apprenticing them, &c. It will, therefore, be as well to 

 oflFer some information relative to the number of b'rrhs, and the mor- 

 tality among infants, although it is a subject on which liie great actuaries 

 speak with caution, and on which sufficiently extensive data do not 

 exist. 



Among the poorer classes a greater number of women become pregnant 

 and a greater number miscarry, than among the higher orders. Tlie 

 mortality among the children of the poor is much greater than among 

 those of the rich, so that the numbers of both rich and poor which attain 

 to maturity are nearly equal in a given number of marriages. The 

 proportion of infant mortality appears, among the poor, to be as follows : 

 out of one thousand births five hundred and forty-two are alive at the 

 time of the mothers' next lying-in. The births average twrf in every 

 four years, from the time of marriage to the twentieth year of parturition ; 

 and the number of children alive at the period of the mother's next 

 lying-in is at the rate of one in every four years. The number of births 

 is not affected by the age at which marriage is contracted on the part of 

 the female, but it appears that the births are not so quick when 

 the woman marries vei^' young, as they are when married at maturer 

 years. The average number of children is nearly four, and the miscar- 

 riages one in three. There are no computations of the numbers of 

 unfruitful marriages. 



As the number of births, and the mortality at different periods of 

 infant life, are points of great importance in political economy, and also 

 to individuals desirous of ensuring benefits for infants, it is expected 

 that the legislature will enact some general and efficient methods 

 by which exact returns may be obtained. Some of the great offices for 

 insurance attempt to obtain information b}^ giving premiums, but their 

 means cannot be rendered as generally available as those which the 

 legislature could adopt. 



The chairman, Mr. Peregrine Courtenay, of the Select Committee on 

 Laws respecting Friendly Societies, communicated with the Baron B. 

 Delessert, and received some useful information from him, from which 

 it seems that systematic attention has been paid to the subject of mor- 

 tality by official persons in France. Mr. Davillard drew up the tables of 

 mortality generally used in France, from documents collected b}^ the 

 Minister of the Interior. As was expected, very minute and detailed 

 replies were given ; some of them approach the computations of our own 

 actuaries : for example, out of one million of children, supposed to 

 be born in France at the same period, five hundred and two thousand 

 two hundred and sixteen, or rather more than half, will be alive in 

 twenty years. The proportion of births in France has constantly dimi- 

 nished: from 1670 to 1700 the births were four four-fifths ; from 1710 to 

 1750 the proportion was four two-fifths ; from 1750 to 1790 it was four 

 minus one-tenth. These are very curious facts, and it is very difficult to 



