THE PRESENT EVOLUTION OP MAN — MENTAL 313 



the temperance movement is modern, and has spread 

 most among the young. 



" 66. It has been alleged that those insured in the 

 Temperance Section have a better constitution than the 

 non-abstainers, and live longer as a result of this, and 

 not on account of their total abstinence. This is purely 

 imaginary, begging the question altogether. There is 

 not a particle of evidence in support of it. The lives 

 in both sections are drawn from the same classes scat- 

 tered all over the kingdom, so that exceptional circum- 

 stances neutralize one another. If there be any difference 

 it is in favour of the strictly temperate persons, as the 

 abstainers include some who have at some former time 

 drunk to excess, but have reformed. 



" 67. A similar difference in favour of abstainers is 

 shown by the statistics of the Order of Rechabites com- 

 pared with the Foresters. The Scottish Temperance 

 Insurance Company has published the diagram on the 

 opposite page, in which the experience of twenty leading 

 life assurance companies is also given. 



" 68. The eminent actuary, Mr. F. G. P. Neison, has 

 published the results of a careful actuarial examination 

 of the reports of the Ancient Order of Foresters, the 

 Manchester Unity of Oddfellows, and the Independent 

 Order of Eechabites. The Foresters and Oddfellows 

 each supplied more than one million and a ■ quarter 

 years of lives for examination, the Rechabites supplied 

 127,269, extending over ten years. Mr. Neison gives 

 the following table, showing the rate of mortality 

 in each — 



