\ CHARLES BABBAGE. ' ' 185 



compose and publisli a joiut work on this subject. Unfortunately, the 

 plan was prevented from being carried out by the premature death of 

 this interesting lady. 



I owe it to the friendship which long united me with Mr. Babbage to 

 having seen in London, on several occasions and in the greatest detail, 

 all the parts of the calculating-machine, and to having been able to 

 form for myself a just conception of a labor of which I had often heard 

 but of which very few people knew the particulars. The machine is 

 certainly very complicated, and extreme attention is needed to follow 

 the action of its different parts; hence, I shall not attempt to give a 

 description of it, which would unquestionably fill quite a considerable 

 volume if we paid respect to the ideas of the inventor, to the extreme 

 perfection of the mechanical workmanship, and to all the mathematical 

 calculations which the machine can perform. 



Researches into statistics also claimed the attention of Babbage, and 

 he was personally instrumental in adding to the committees of the Brit- 

 ish Association one on this subject. The attention of the committee on 

 statistics was first turned to the need of exact documents in regard to 

 population, a want much felt in England, especially as to everything 

 relative to births, deaths, &c. Meetings were afterward held in Lon- 

 don of persons interested in the subject of statistics, in which Mr. Bab- 

 bage took an active part, and to which 1 was admitted. They exam- 

 ined, among other questions, that of the labor imposed upon children in 

 manufacturies. The following questions were propounded to me in 

 regard to Belgium, which I transmitted to the minister of the interior, 

 who promised to have collected the necessary data for a satisfactory 

 reply. The honorable savants asked — 



" The number of births produced by each marriage during its entire 

 length ; 



" The proportional number of children who reach the period of mar- 

 riage ; 



" The number of children living by each marriage ; 



" The salaries paid in manufacturies and agriculture in different prov- 

 inces, especially the price of an average day's labor in agriculture ; 



" The quantity of wheat which such a day's pay can procure in ordi- 

 nary times ; 



" The mean price of different kinds of grain ; 



" The habitual food of the day-laborer ; 



" The proportional number of sterile marriages ; 



" The proportional number of marriages having five or six children 

 living." 



As an instance of our friend's singular disposition to enter upon in- 

 vestigations of the most out-of the-way character, I may mention that 

 for a time he lost sight of the profound speculations of political economy, 

 and busied himself with the question as to how many times any letter 



