ON LIFE CONTINGENCIES. l 



Most tables in which the sexes are distinguished 

 unite in presenting this result, that female life is ma- 

 terially better than male life. But this fact is much 

 more distinctly apparent in towns than in the country, 

 and in the Belgian tables the phenomenon is reversed, 

 so that while female life is decidedly better than male 

 life in the towns, it is not so good in the country. 

 Mr. Milne has remarked that in Stockholm the dif- 

 ference between male and female mortality was three 

 times as large a per centage of the whole as it was in all 

 Sweden. The probable reason for this discordance 

 is the different employment of women in town and 

 country ; all the tables yet constructed which distin- 

 guish the sexes, and include rural life, having been 

 made from a great preponderance of the working 

 classes. The only tables which separate the sexes, and 

 which are formed from the middle classes, are those of 

 Mr. Finlaison ; and here the difference is greatest of 

 all. 



This consideration is very material in comparing the 

 tables which I have given. If a table of male life 

 should fall short of one of female life, all other cir- 

 cumstances remaining the same, it is no more than we 

 might expect ; while at the same time the true pro- 

 portions of male and female life, as well as the manner 

 in which they depend on local or other circumstances, 

 are very imperfectly known. But if a table of male life 

 only should present the same results as one of mixed 

 lives, we are then sure that the former represents a 

 longer duration of existence. For instance, the table 

 of the Equitable insurance office, which is almost entirely 

 composed of males, is almost identical with the Carlisle 

 table in which there are more females than males. 

 This shows that the select male lives of the office are 

 much better than the male lives of the Carlisle table : 

 but that the male lives of the office, constantly recruited 

 as they have been with selected lives of all ages, are 

 no better than the mixed lives of the Carlisle table. 

 Similarly, the males of the Amicable table are very 



