64 



Progress of Population and Wealth 



II. — The proporth 



of white Males and Females, of different ages, according to the 

 enumerations of 1830 and 1840. 



Whilst, of the children born alive, the males commonly exceed 

 the females by about the twentieth part, the preceding tables show 

 that the mortality of the males somewhat exceeds that of females 

 in the middle periods of life, so as to more than counterbalance the 

 original preponderance. This is owing, no doubt, to the greater 

 casualties to which the male sex is exposed, and, probably, some- 

 what more to their frequent use of spirituous liquors in excess. 



At the two last periods of life in the three first enumerations, 

 viz, from twenty-six to forty five, the males gain upon the females 

 until they pass beyond their original excess. This is the effect, not 

 of a greater mortality of the females, but of a greater accession of 

 males by immigration, as will more clearly appear by the fuller 

 details of the two last enumerations. 



According to these, the males gain upon the females from the 

 age of twenty to forty, after which the proportion of females 

 gradually increases until the period from seventy to eighty, when it 

 preponderates, and the excess still increases until the age of one 

 hundred, after which the number of males is greatest. In these 

 enumerations, it will be seen that the proportion of males was 

 smaller in the first class, (those under five,) than at any of the 

 twelve succeeding periods, except the class between thirty and 

 forty in the fifth census, that between thirty and fifty in the sixth 

 census, and the class over one hundred in both. Now, as most of 

 those who have migrated to this country within ten years preceding 

 a census would be above thirty at the time it was taken, and a 



