TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 745 



times of 1841-51, the evil days of 'Sybil,' of 'Mary Barton,' of 'Sartor llesartus,' 

 recently quoted by Mr. Giflen,^ when the increase of the population was the 

 "slowest, that the proportion of the population supported by agriculture reached its 

 highest point. And if we compare the vital statistics, as a whole, of our present 

 town- dwelling population with the more rural one of 1838-54, as presented to us 

 by Mr. Noel Humphreys in a recent paper read before the Statistical Society, we 

 do not find tliat the conditions of town-life have told adversely on the population 

 of the country as a whole. Mr. Humphreys answers the question, ' Do we have a 

 greater enjoyment of life as the result of a decline in the death-rate, or are we 

 only a little slower in dying ? ' by demonstrating that ' although a large proportion 

 of people cease to be dependent before twenty, and a large proportion of people do 

 not become dependent at sixty, we shall not be far wrong in classing the forty 

 years from twenty to sixty as the most useful period of man's life. Of the 2,009 

 years added to the lives of 1,000 males by the reduction of the death-rate in 

 1876-80 (as compared with 1838-54), no less than 1,407, or 70 per cent., are 

 lived at the useful ages of between twenty and sixty.' - 



Nor did the Anthropometric Committee, appointed on the recommendation of 

 this Section in 1875, and which carried on its work until 1883, verify by its obser- 

 vations the generally prevailing notion that the population of the kingdom is 

 degenerating. The observations of the Committee were on a comparatively small 

 scale, but as far as the opportunities and resources of the Committee enabled thera 

 to be carried out, they showed that although in average height and weight the 

 peasant in this country is superior to the artisan, as might be expected from the 

 conditions of an outdoor as against a mainly indoor life, the stature and weight of 

 factory children has decidedly increased. ' The increase in weight amounts to a 

 whole year's gain, and a child of nine years of age in 1873 weighed as much as 

 one of ten years in 1833, one of ten as much as one of eleven, and one of eleven 

 as much as one of twelve years in the two periods respectively.' ^ 



I have dwelt briefly on the subject of vital statistics, as being perhaps the most 

 important subject of inquiry that can come under the consideration of the statistician 

 or the economist. * That which does no harm to the State does no harm to 

 the individual ' ; we may state conversely this maxim of Marcus Antoninus, and 

 claim that that which is beneficial to the individual is beneficial to the State ; and if 

 the prolongation of life be, and be rightly, an object of universal aim, it is especially 

 desirable that we should inform ourselves accurately as to whether we are living 

 under conditions favourable to its prolongation. And if we can prove to demon- 

 stration that thi.'s is the case, and that the average duration of life at the period 

 when life is most useful and most enjoyable has increased, we shall have made one 

 step necessarily preliminary to the inquiry, how far this has been due to the common- 

 sense of the community rightly left alone, and how far to regulation by the State 

 of man's apparent inclination to choose the evil rather than the good. 



I do not propose to discuss here the precise extent to which the Factory Acts, 

 Sanitary Acts, the greater recognition of the necessity for providing open spaces in 

 large towns, or playgrounds and recreation for their children and inhabitants, have 

 contributed to the results which have been obtained. I would rather limit myself 

 to pointing out how, in such an all-important subject of inquiry, the utmost dili- 

 gence is necessary if we would escape dangerous error. The population of a great 

 city is not a mere inert mass of units, to be counted and compared with other simi- 

 lar aggregations, as we count and compare tons of iron or bales of cotton in stock. 

 Before we can arrive at any pronouncement as to its welfare or otherwise, we must 

 take into consideration many factors besides its actual population at successive 

 periods, or its birth-rate as compared with its death-rate. I may cite, for one or 

 two instances of these disturbing causes, the admirable essay by Mons. E. Oheysson, 

 to which reference has already been made. He shows clearly how in the case of 



' ' Progress of Working Classes,' Jowr/iaZ of Stat. Soo., March 1886 ; see also Tooke'a 

 History of Prices, 1848, vol. iv. pp. 56-57, as to the effect of the stoppage of flow of 

 population from country to town in ] 842-1844. 



2 Journal Stat. Sac, June 1883, p. 204. 



' Rejmrt of British Association, 1883, p. 298. 



