240 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



addition to the soldier's arms ; a charge of cavalry upon 

 well-armed infantry will be almost as hopeless as the 

 famous Balaclava charge ; and the artillery on either 

 side will have to play a game at long shots. We ven- 

 ture to anticipate that the first great European war 

 will introduce a total change into the whole system of 

 warlike manoeuvres.* 



(From the Daily Neios, November 1868.) 



INFLUENCE OF MARRIAGE ON THE DEATH- 

 RATE. 



THE Royal Commission on the Law of Marriage has 

 attracted attention to many singular and instructive 

 results of modern statistical inquiry. Not the least 

 important of these is the apparent influence of marriage 

 on the death-rate. For several years it has been 

 noticed by statisticians that the death-rate of unmarried 

 men is considerably higher than the death-rate of 

 married men and widowers. We believe that Dr. 

 Stark, Registrar- General for Scotland, was one of the 

 first to call attention to this peculiarity, as evidenced 

 by the results of two years' returns for Scotland. But 

 the law has since been confirmed by a far wider range 

 of statistical inquiry. The relative proportion between 

 the death-rates of the married and of the unmarried is 

 not absolutely uniform in different countries, but it is 

 fairly enough represented by the following table, which 



* The reader need hardly be reminded of the most complete fulfilment 

 of this anticipation. 



