1887.] Mr T. B. Sprague on a Fruitful Marriage. 
335 
paratively useless to include in the observations any existing 
marriages that had subsisted for less than, say, ten years. I have 
therefore taken no account of any marriage entered into after the 
year 1870, these being the latest recorded in the Peerage for 1871 ; 
and by examination of Lodge’s and Burke’s Peerages for 1884, I 
ascertained in regard to each marriage whether it had been fruitful 
up to the year 1883 inclusive. Thus every marriage included in my 
observations, has either been dissolved by death (or divorce), or has 
subsisted for at least thirteen years. 
Proceeding, then, on the principles explained, I obtained informa- 
tion as to the marriages of the peers of 1870 and certain of their 
male relations ; and although, as far as I could see, the facts stated 
in the Peerage with regard to all of these, were equally trustworthy 
and suitable for my purpose, I decided, as a matter of precaution, to 
extract and tabulate separately, the facts relating to the following 
classes of men: — (1) the peers whose names are given in the 
Peerage for 1871; (2) their fathers; (3) their grandfathers; (4) 
their sons ; (5) their brothers ; (6) their uncles, being the fathers’ 
brothers ; and I did not consider it desirable to extend the enquiry 
to the peers’ nephews, or cousins, or more remote relations. 
To each marriage was assigned a distinctive number, and the 
particulars were then written in a book in the following form : — 
No. 
Born 
Title 
Married . Age 
Name 
Widower 
Wife horn A.o-e 
Died 
1 
Children, j 
Died. Married. 
8. or D. No. Born. 
1 
2 
3 
VOL. XIV. 
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