IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
57 
tions should be thoroughly taken, so that reliable com- 
parisons can be made and correct conclusions drawn. 
Statistics have been used ever since there were states; first 
by the government to number the fighting men, next to 
ascertain what amount of taxes should be levied on the 
remainder of the population. Statistics, or rather the 
material for statistics, existed at a very early period, but it 
was not until within the last three centuries that statistic 
use of the information available began to be made for pur- 
poses of investigation, and not for administration only. 
What we now call vital statistics was first known as 
“political arithmetic,” and began to be used in England 
about the middle of the seventeenth century. Statistics is 
defined as a collection of facts, tabulated and classified, 
respecting the condition of society in city, in state, or in 
the country. Vital statistics pertain to health, disease and 
mortality. 
MARRIAGES. 
I have in my possession the Sixty-fourth Annual 
Report of the Registrar-General of births, deaths, and 
marriages in England and Wales for the year 1901. I 
learn from this volume, of more than 300 closely printed 
pages, that the number of marriages during that year was 
259,400, corresponding to a rate of 16 married persons per 
1,000 of the estimated population. This rate was slightly 
below the average for the past 40 years. What seems most 
remarkable is the uniformity of rate during all these years. 
The slight decrease of the rates for 1900 and 1901 was 
probably due in some measure to the war in South Africa. 
In accordance with the marriage act of 1898, which pro- 
vides that under specified conditions, marriages may be 
solemnized in registered buildings by certain duly author- 
ized persons without the attendance of a Register of Mar- 
riages, there are 25,000 certified places of worship. There 
are more than 15,000 churches or chapels of the Estab- 
lished Church in which marriages may legally be solemn- 
ized. There are also more than 13,000 buildings registered 
for the solemnization of marriages by rites other than 
