282 LIGHT SCIENCE FOE LEISURE HOURS. 



Darwin as our highest authority on such subjects. 

 Darwin himself and Herbert Spencer have further 

 indicated how the matter really stands. Yet the error 

 has been repeated again and again since, and only a 

 few days ago a learned professor, lecturing at the 

 Montefiore Institute, quoted the fallacious evidence 

 from statistics which deceived Stark, Bertillon, and 

 others. Dr. Drysdale, indeed, goes somewhat farther. 

 Not only, according to him, does matrimony prolong 

 life, but it saves men also from insanity and from 

 crime. 



I have quoted Dr. Stark's reasoning in the essay 

 above referred to, since published in the first series of 

 my Light Sd&ace. It is based on the mortality 

 returns in Scotland. Bertillon's later evidence, based 

 on the mortality in France, Belgium, and Holland, is 

 to the same effect, and runs as follows : * From 25 

 to 30 years of age the mortality per 1,000 in France 

 amounts to 6'2 in married men, 10'2 in bachelors, and 

 21*8 in widows. In Brussels, the mortality of married 

 women is 9 per 1,000, girls the same, and widows as 

 high as 16'9. In Belgium, the mortality of 7 per 1,000 

 among married men rises to 8*5 in bachelors and 24*6 

 in widowers. The proportion is the same in Holland. 

 From 8-2 in married men it rises to 11'7 in bachelors 

 and 16' 9 in widowers ; 12-8 in married women, 8'5 in 

 spinsters, and 13-8 in widows. The result of all the 

 calculations is that from 25 to 30 years of age the 

 mortality is 4 in married men, 10'4 in bachelors, and 

 22 in widowers. This beneficial effect of marriage is. 



