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assertion may, perhaps even more truly, he made regarding facts, 
which, although considered somewhat “sair to ding,” are very 
differently interpreted by different individuals.* Interested mo- 
tives, preconceived opinions, and illogical conceptions constitute 
some of the principal causes of perverted conclusions ; and both 
facts and figures are very liable to misrepresentation. Hence the 
tendency in many quarters to distrust the deductions drawn from 
figures of almost every kind, more especially in the columns of 
official reports and the prospectuses of commercial enterprises. 
Even among intelligent and educated men, some strangely confused 
ideas prevail respecting statistics, many such persons erroneously 
supposing that every class of numerical facts ought to possess an 
equal amount of certainty and precision, similar to what is produced 
by the abstract figures of an arithmetical process. 
When regarded in the true and proper light, and after having 
been subjected to certain requisite modifications, the same series 
of figures cannot possibly admit of two inconsistent conclusions. 
On the present occasion, my remarks will be entirely confined to 
what are usually termed “ Vital Statistics,” as derived from the 
national Eegisters of Births, Marriages, and Deaths. The disregard 
of what may be termed disturbing influences is probably the most 
frequent cause of erroneous deductions from the published figures. 
Thus, in one town district, with a population of 20,000 persons, 
the mortality of the year is found to amount to 35 per 1000 ; 
while in another, with the same population, the mortality is only 
20 per 1000. A casual reader is apt to jump to the conclusion 
that the former district is much more unhealthy than the other; 
whereas, if he took the trouble to reflect and inquire, he would pro- 
* In one of his papers in the Spectator on “ The Uncertainty and Absurdit}^ 
of Public Reports,” Steele refers to the very limited number of persons who caw 
see or hear — that is, who can accurately report what they have seen or heard 
— either through incapacity or prejudice. After stating that he despises the 
man given to narration under the appellation of “a matter of fact man,” he 
defines him as “one whose life and conversation is spent in the report of what 
is matter of fact,” Probably the ordinary estimate of the individual in 
question is somewhat different ; but it cannot be denied that in many instances 
the force of a verbal description depends more upon the look, the voice, and 
the gesture than upon the words themselves, and accordingly a very erroneous 
impression may sometimes be derived from a colourless and undiscerniiig 
narration. 
