72 Bates of Mortality 



It would appear at first sight, from Table B, that the rates of 

 mortality here are greater than in England, for ages above 25 

 years. Between the ages of 30 and 35, for instance, 350 die in 

 New South Wales and 317 in England ; but this is not because 

 circumstances generally here are less favourable to life at that 

 age, but because the comparatively smaller rates of mortality at 

 lower ages have left more alive at the age of 30. The per-centage 

 of deaths here is less at those ages, as appears from Table A ; but 

 the total number of deaths is greater, as shown by Table B. 

 And even where the per-centage of deaths is greater in New 

 South "Wales than in England, as between the ages of 45 and 50, 

 it does not necessarily follow — and this is a good instance of the 

 danger of drawing hasty conclusions from a mere comparison of 

 figures — it does not necessarily follow that circumstances gener- 

 ally here are less favourable to life at those ages than in England. 

 On account of the low rates of mortality at the earlier ages, of a 

 given number bom in this colony, a much larger number would 

 attain the age of 45 than in England. Of these a considerable pro- 

 portion would probably consist of persons of rather weaker 

 constitution than the average, who in England would have died 

 early, but have survived here, to swell the numbers of those 

 living at the age of 45, but at the same time to diminish their 

 average strength of constitution, and thus to increase the average 

 per-centage of deaths amongst them. In fact, the people in 

 England at the age of 45 may be subject to a less per-centage of 

 deaths, not because climate and other circumstances in that 

 country are more favourable to life at that age, but because the 

 weak ones have been weeded out and the hardy ones alone survive. 

 The argument in favour of this view of the case would have con- 

 siderable weight if the bulk of the persons living in the colony, 

 as well as those whose deaths have been registered, were native 

 born ; but as a large proportion of them were born in the British 

 Islands, in much the same proportion is the argument weakened. 

 And the question is pretty well set at rest by the results given 

 in Table B. If the circumstances of the colony were really more 

 favourable to life, even at the more advanced ages for which the 

 per-centages of deaths is greater than for the corresponding ages 

 in England, then of 10,000 born there would at every age, to the 

 end of the table, be more survivors than in England, whereas we 

 find that, although the numbers living at the several ages are at 

 first greater in New South Wales, the difference becomes gradually 

 diminished, until at the age of 65 the numbers living in the two 

 countries become nearly equal ; and beyond that age the number 

 of survivors here becomes much less than in England, at the same 

 time that the per-centage of deaths becomes greater. There is 

 no doubt, then, that, under existing circumstances, the com- 

 parison is unfavourable to New South Wales ; but there are 



