1832.] Estimate of the Risk of Life, $c. 277 



II. — Estimate of the Risk of Life to Civil Servants of the Bengal 

 Presidency in each year of their Residence in India. By H. T. 

 Prinsep, Esq. Secretary to Government, Sfc. <5fc. 

 The Number of the Gleanings in Science for September, 1831, 

 contained an article " On the Duration of Life in the Bengal Civil Ser- 

 vice" with several tables, exhibiting the results at which the author 

 had arrived by various processes of calculation. The subject is of 

 first-rate interest to all residents in India, and the manner in 

 which these tables have been given forth is likely to lead to 

 their bein«- taken upon trust as of full authority. The results 

 however are too startling to be admitted without a strict exami- 

 nation of the data, which are the basis of calculation; and as the regis- 

 ters and statements from which these profess to be taken were compiled 

 principally in my office, and have recently been brought to more accu- 

 racy than they possessed when first prepared and furnished to the 

 Finance Committee, and to other departments and public officers, 

 I have thought it my duty to recast them myself into a tabular 

 form, so as to allow the results afforded by them to be compared with 

 those asssumed in the article in question. I am sorry to say, that they 

 differ too widely to be adjusted by any compendious explanation of 

 discrepancies ; and, as I have found reason moreover to doubt whether 

 any accurate conclusions can be drawn from the specific results which 

 are there exhibited as the basis of calculation, I am compelled to adopt 

 somewhat different forms. For these reasons, no less than for assurance, 

 that the data have not been lightly assumed, my first table has extend- 

 ed to a size and contains a quantity of detail which may prove 

 inconvenient. 



It is necessary to premise that the materials we possess are : first, the 

 appointments made in each year by the Honorable Court of Directors. 

 Secondly, the arrivals in India under these appointments ; which are 

 necessarily irregular in date, and not equal in number with the nomina- 

 tions. Thirdly, the retirements ; which is rather a wide class, including 

 as well those who absolutely resign, as those who leave the country upon 

 temporary leave, and overstay the period of five years fixed by Act of 

 Parliament as the limit for absence from India without loss of the service. 

 Civil Servants on Furlough, or in Europe, under temporary leave, being 

 still borne on the registers, and their deaths being reported, are consi- 

 dered as still in the service, and though dying perhaps in Europe or 

 on shipboard would be entered amongst the deaths. The dismissals 

 from service are included in the head of Retirements. Fourthly, 

 Deaths ; the reports of which, with the dates, are ordinarily on record ; 



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