818 Table of Mortality. [Sep 



VI. — Table of Mortality for ages from birth to twenty years, framed 

 from the Registers of the Lower Orphan School, Calcutta. By H. 

 T. Prinsep, Esq. 



In the article published by me in the Journal of the Asiatic Society 

 for the month of May 1837, I pointed out the facility with which the 

 principle of computation applied therein to the casualties of the Bengal 

 Civil Service, might be extended to any fixed and continuous body, 

 provided only there was a register kept of the age at which each 

 individual came to belong to it, and of the casualties with the date of 

 the occurrence of each, or if the life was lost to the registers, through 

 retirement, discharge, or other similar contingency, of the date of such 

 removal from the books. 



I advised the formation of books, arranged for each age of life, for 

 registering the casualties amongst considerable numbers of each grade 

 of the population of India, in order that tables might be framed there- 

 from for the valuation of native life, so as eventually to extend to 

 this class the benefits of life assurance in all its branches. 



I beg through the pages of the Journal again to point attention to 

 this object, and as a first fruit of the wide field of statistical inquiry 

 which lies open in this direction, requiring only a little labour to yield a 

 rich crop of useful results, I now present to the public a table of 

 mortality for children and young persons, from birth to twenty year 9 

 of age, framed from the registers of the Lower Orphan School of Cal- 

 cutta, upon the principle before explained and inculcated. 



I am indebted to Dr. Stewart, late Secretary of the Statistical Com- 

 mittee of the Asiatic Society, for the materials from which the table has 

 been prepared. This gentleman, being connected with the Military 

 Orphan School, found that a series of registers had been kept, and 

 were forthcoming from 1798, of every boy and girl who had been 

 admitted to that institution. The books were made up annually, and 

 the boys or girls' names being entered alphabetically at the beginning 

 of the year, twelve columns were ruled down the page, and any casualty 

 by death was entered with its date in the column of the proper month. 

 In like manner at the foot of the list of boys and girls in the institution 

 on the 1st January, the fresh entries in the course of the year were 

 recorded, with notice of the age of each new comer, and the date of his 

 admission appeared in the column for the month when it took place. 



Upon the first view of these registers, I at once perceived that they 

 afforded the materials for a computation of the mortality amongst the 

 inmates of the Orphan School, upon the principle applied to the Civil 



