LAW OF MORTALITY, FOR BRITISH INDIA. 197 



The next Table is that of the Calcutta Burials, European and East 

 Indian, at the Park-street Burial Ground.* From the impossibility of 

 ascertaining, with the means at the disposal of the Committee, the births 

 and periodical accession of strangers, and the difficulty of separating the 

 classes, it was impracticable to prepare from these data an accurate, or even 

 approximating, expectation of life for the city of Calcutta. 



It may be presumed that the accessions chiefly experienced, by arrivals 

 from England, include between the ages of 18 and 25, and that thenceforward 

 until the later ages of retirement and return to the native country, there is 

 not much fluctuation in numbers, except in the yearly uncertain and tempo- 

 rary addition of seamen and commercial visitors. This, of course, applies 

 to the European part of the community ; the East Indian inhabitants being 

 throughout more permanent and stationary. Under the foregoing sup- 

 position, it will be found from the numbers exhibited in the Table that out 

 of a radix of population of both classes to the extent of near three thousand 

 souls of the age of 20 to 25, about one hundred die annually, or, as the real 

 decrements shew, 3.84 per cent. For the next ten years the annual per- 

 centage is 5.49. For the ensuing same term, or from 35 to 45 it is 6.7 per 

 cent. From 45 to 55, it is 6.18, while from 55 to 65, (though this term is 

 little to be relied on from the frequent secession of persons retiring to 

 England) the percentage is 8.4. Out of four thousand seven hundred and 

 thirteen burials altogether recorded in 20 years, two hundred and seventy- 

 nine are seamen, who died on a visit to the port — swelling the ratio of 

 decrement, it may be supposed, at the middle ages. It is to be regretted 

 that this Table could not be rendered available for any useful purpose 

 to the Committee : all that could be gathered from it was a picture of 

 Indian mortality, probably in its concentrated, worst, and most appalling 

 character. 



* Vide Table No. 6. 

 3 B 



