Mortality of Male Children . -35 f 
in the world a due proportion between the fexes.” And 
further, you elfewhere remark*, that 44 the faffs recited at 
44 the end of yonr fourth Effay prove y that there is a difference 
44 between the mortality of males and females ; but that you 
44 muft however obferve, that it may be doubted , whether this 
44 difference, fo unfavourable to males, be natural ; and that 
44 there are fadls which prove that you have reafon for fuch a 
44 doubt.” After dating a number of very fatisfadlory fadls of 
this kind you remark,, that 44 the inference from them is very 
46 obvious that they feem to fhew fufficiently, that human 
44 life in males is more brittle than in females, only in confe- 
44 quence of adventitious caufes, or of fome particular debility 
44 which takes place in polifhed and luxurious focieties, and 
44 efpecially in great towns” 
What thofe adventitious caufes are, or how this particular 
debility is produced and operates, are queflions which appear 
to me highly interefting and curious. I have therefore been at 
confiderable pains to examine and arrange a very accurate and 
ex-tenfive regiflry in fuch a manner as I hope will throw fome 
light on thefe queflions. As it is to the accuracy of modern 
regiflers that we are originally indebted for our knowledge of 
the fadls in queftion, I apprehend, it is from the fame fburce 
only that we fhall be enabled fatisfadlorily to explain them. 
Of the regiflry inclofed, I beg leave to obferve to you, Sir, 
that it has been kept from its* commencement by a man of un- 
common accuracy (one of the under-clerks of our Houfe of 
Commons); and that as the poor women and their children are 
obliged to pafs through his office, before leaving the Hofpital, 
his fituation is fuch that there is no likelihood of his being 
deceived. It exhibits to our view the occurrences of 28 years. 
* Voh II. P . 247. 
