282 
Dr. Young’s formula for expressing 
the observations have been made, and partly from an erro- 
neous opinion respecting the profits of certain establishments, 
which have been attributed to the employment of too low 
an estimate of mortality, while they have, in fact, been prin- 
cipally derived from the high rate of interest which the state 
of public credit has afforded. 
A very laborious and well informed actuary has lately 
asserted, before a Committee of the House of Commons, that 
“ the duration of existence now, compared with what it was a 
hundred years ago, is as four to three, in round numbers.” 
(Pari. Rep. N.,522, p. 44.) It does indeed happen, that this 
particular result may in one sense be very correctly deduced 
from the immediate comparison of the annual mortality of a 
certain number of persons of the same description, that is, 
annuitants, at the periods in question ; nor is it possible to 
deny that some importance must be attached to the remark : 
but the mortality of the same class of persons in France, at 
the earlier period, was no greater, according to Mr. Depar- 
cieux’s estimate of their longevity, than in England at the 
later, while the general mortality in France has never been 
materially less than in England, and appears at present to be 
even somewhat greater : and it can only be conjectured, that 
the annuitants of the tontine of King W illiam were in general 
most injudiciously selected, while those who were the sub- 
jects of Mr. Deparcieux’s observations, like the annuitants 
of the modern tontines, were chosen with more care, or with 
greater success. Mr. Finlaison’s tables, therefore, though 
they may be extremely just and valuable for the purpose of 
setting a price upon annuities to be granted on the lives of 
the proposers, cannot, with any prudence, be adopted where 
