238 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



affair altogether. The bayonet will be an almost useless 

 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 bowls. I venture 

 to anticipate that the first great European war will 

 introduce a total change into the whole system of war- 

 like manoeuvres. 1 



(From the Daily News, November 1868.) 



INFLUENCE OF MARRIAGE ON THE DEATH- 

 RATE. 



THE Eoyal 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. I believe that Dr. Stark, 

 Eegistrar-Greneral 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 



1 The reader need hardly be reminded of the complete fulfilment 

 of this anticipation, during the war between France and Germany. 



