Edmonds's Life Tables. 205 



In page xii. he appears to prefer the Northampton Table, chiefly be- 

 cause it is supported by the name of Dr. Price. But the known incor- 

 rectness of this table, or, as our author is pleased to express himself, 

 the '' slight mskccuracy of its adjustment of mortality to each age," is 

 not, in his judgement, of any " sensible value in practice ;" yet he 

 afterwards admits that "its applicability to the British population 

 of the present day may fairly be questioned." We believe that the 

 Northampton Table is not capable of affording any accurate mea- 

 sure of life contingencies of any kind ; in which respect it so much 

 resembles our author's own offspring, that we are not surprised at 

 its having received from him a kind of fatherly affection. 



The Government Table, on the contrary, deduced from the lives of 

 Englishannuitants,because,asthe author says, it "opposeswj/ theory^ 

 as well as that of every other person ' , incurs his severe displeasure. A 

 clearly demonstrable fact opposed to a favourite theory is, we admit, 

 vexatious enough, and more particularly so when the theory is one 

 of our own invention, one of our first-born bantlings, and one upon 

 which our hopes of reaping a full harvest of renown has been anx- 

 iously founded. So harassing indeed has this opposition of the 

 Government Table to our author's theory been to his feelings, that he 

 would hurl the Table and its author to perdition together, with per- 

 haps the printer and his devils into the bargain. 



His method, however, of disposing of the author is not marked by 

 that precision which we should have expected from a B.A. of Trinity 

 College, Cambridge. He says, " the reported mortality of English 

 annuitants is not entitled to much confidence," because it " rests 

 upon the authority of a person whose qualifications for the task un- 

 dertaken are unknown to the public." But the reported mortality 

 is that which appears in the records preserved in the Government 

 offices, and does not rest upon the authority of any person except 

 as a transcriber, whose only requisite qualifications are, that he should 

 be able to read and write, and, as school-boys term it, do a sum in 

 Addition. We will, however, deal fairly with iVIr. Edmonds, and not 

 pin him down to his own loose expression, " rqjorted mortality, " but 

 will help him to a phrase, which if any distinct meaning pervaded 

 his mind when he wrote the passages we have just quoted, may per- 

 haps represent that meaning. He possibly intended to say that the 

 Teportedprobability of If e, among the English annuitants, is not en- 

 titled to much confidence, because the qualifications of the person 

 deducing it are unknovm to the public. 



Now, of all the reasons we have ever heard for discrediting the 

 result of a rather complicated arithmetical process, this is the most 

 futile and absurd : — because the qualifications of the author are un- 

 knoiun to the public. Why upon this principle, the Tables of Mr. Ed- 

 monds might, even if they were really good for anything, flap their 

 leaden wings to the end of time without attaining even the lowest 

 degree of public confidence. For what do the public know of this 

 gentleman's qualifications ? But we will ask him what he means by 

 the public'^ We much suspect that in his vocabulary it signifies only 

 the individual occupant of his own chambers. We shall, however, 

 construe the phrase according to its ordinary acceptation, and shall 



