Star.
London, England, 1829-04-20 00:00:00

Parc" SIVENTSNCIRs

~:.


his decease will not find its way into a newspacer,
,nor the sweat, be followed by adoninistat;on? The
anpnity. is either MOH or large. Unless hbe large. it
,oese a. prodigal earnditure .gt. It in incui menifest
.peril co such poor tamptati,,n ; .f feet.. then. beyond
,all que.tion, the nominee. prnpriet,lr. or executors, are
people ofpme condign)°, and no tiretence can exist
for the suss isicion of freed. deliberately and periodi-
cally reiterated. L4stly, the annuity. small or goer; is
either draws in person or by anotisey. The la ter
wnuld not be muted with the mow if he. ant ts .t
person asesiect.thility, known en and also knowing well
:the priacira4 and hi. concerns Com day to day. Nine
times in ten they ate bankers, whin have no is terest in,
And sila besides. titteily incapable of aiding unit ahtt-
ting in felony. It iir4wo in person. the nominee niuvt,
in very few years. be coinpletely knoan, as well AS his
hibtory sod connections. to the clerks and others of

Government* and to person Ice him is impossible.—
Nevertisebr-s.:abOrtt twenty years ago, .sseitions that
such thiqgs were peactised so far prodded, that Par-
liament nted sSairct Committee to inquire into
t 1 laisAtontines, the nominees of w hich were discon-
tented at-,thoje oleo uoreasonable hingesity. b cause
they woul notdiesief so fiat as D . Ppite predicted.
But I thing the Committee repented that D .P. ice (nnt

those who naanaged.the tontinek) MA4 materially in the
sal* And of this rut there is abundArt evidence itr
thq subsequent observations. •
In regatd to. the observAtions on the law of lotus-
lity, as declined Irons statistical materials, s lie her in a

parish, city, or entire kingilom, it eems.scalcely neces-
sary to enter into touch argument to prose their mini-
feat deficiency for the object propesed ;for hi w can the
facts Ae.antl C. that is, the census of the town, &c. at the
commencement and the conclusion of the ohservatien,
be sic cur atytY' proiared? The population, if they could
all be. discovered (not an easy matter), have ass interest,
.certainly no inclination, to disclose voluntarily their
exact ages, Many of them cannot, or care not, to tell
how the fact is; 80 very few will be focid anti us to
state it cortectly. How can the patticolars B. mid F.
which. mutate nonibte. iniply the number of births; and
also the number of in-cotneri or settlers into the town,
c,

_... with their several ages at the time, be roomed?
Of the latter no ',ulster is ever kept any where; of the
former it is a master of such notoriety that. the lower
orders, although they always, per hap-, selicit the rite
of baptism, will not. in. many instance*. take the subse-
quent tri.uhle of registration, that every clergyman of
any considerable parish will bear unequivocal testimony
to the fact; and this, to say nothing of particular sects.
How ate the particulareD. to be procured ?—that is,
.the number and their exact ages who may have! ft the
town. There is nowhere, and never to be found, sty
information at all on this head. The magnitude of the
max of settler's and families, &c. depends altogether on
the fluctuating demand for their laboUr there or else-
' when. It st nor, and cannot be recorded, much less
tire sevasid ages in detail. Finally'. fee-the raitictilars
'E., a the 141 a at every age, accurately set froth in the
inun cipar 40Orsparilkh reassert.? No one will attires, or
believe suds a thing They ate most fieqneotly re-
po' led by the tick nurse or undertaker to the parochial
authorities,- at a tinsi abets the family of the deceased
is in afflictiors.'and the reporters neither know nor care
.whether the fact be truly ',pimpled sir otherwise.
Many and many a death is never teemed at all.
. A que.tson naturally arises, otiosely. wl ether among
the ruiddliiig and !tight.' des es exclusively, to which
inn reservations Ire restricted, the rate of mortality
,th
'may not.vary esea- in the British empire .tselt Li .the
course at a long period of time, from the vrogress of
civilization, -the inciea., of medical •cience, the ad-.
vancement of the alts conducive to hi.man consford
and of wealth 'commanding the means to resider there
available, particularly from-that signal event in modem
times, the diaceeety of vaccination. ( r, la.riy, twos a
concurrence of some or all of these caosea ?
To who's I would beg leave to answer, that the facts
shown in the annexed observations. which are chrono-
logical y arranged, bear conciu.sve testimony. as I
humbly conceive, that it is an indisputable truth that
the rate of mortality in England ha,, during the last
century, diminished in a very important degree, on each
sex equally, but not by equal gradation,, nor equally
at all periods of life ; and that while, in regard to the
males. it seems in catty and middling 1 fe to have re-
attained for a long time as it etc od about .50 years ago,
in respect of the females it has, during the ear e time,
visibly a?d progressively diminished to this day, by
slight but still sensitsle gradations. Not presuming to
hive any opinion on the causes to which a cirenmstance
so recnaikatife may he attlibuted, I beg leave merely
to mention, in respect to the discovesy of vaccination,
that none of the 60,A-fluent observations have an c•n-
cern with it. I understand that it was not gens-tally
introduced, even amorg the higher and wealr y orders
of society, before the year 1805 or so. Now the latest
observations which the:facts he, e adduced present .en
'infant life commence in' 1790, so that the )ciineest
child would be 15-- in 1805, and not many exceeding
that age, peihaps, submitted in fact afterwards to.vtc-
-1 • •
cmatt.u. because they-sem getting older as it.became
More geneialli.ptactised. I learn, -moreover, that the
vatiolotra inoculation was little kn( wit in general prac-
tice before the year 11$0, and most people are.aware
that it never *as universal, even among the mere en-
, lightened classes, from the natural aver sion of parents
Ito superinduce voluntarily a loathsome disease. which
the child, very probably. might escape altogether., Now
it is an unquestionable fact that there its no. p reeptibte
difference at all in the mortality a •fbil4l,rete•frows the
see of shrfoir to ihe.age of 20 in the .60 yeses preceding
18)5; that from the•ages of 'bite to 12 the mortality
regula.tly.diminishea from about 12 in a thousand to 6,
, 5, and only 4. in a thousand; and from adolescence to
iseatuiity it rises again. Considering, therefoie, the in-
'numerable ailments to which children are liable besides
'that of the mall pox, it is not in my power to believe
that the serail pot is that period was so fatil a scourge
as it is supposed, unless indeed its whole severity fell
es infants under three years old, and on the children
,of the primer classes exclusively ; because. with very
rest deference to better judges, I am unable to con-
Mee I lower rate of mortality. than foul: or Sae rer
salmi is a thousand, which was the case while the
email pox held full sway.
i. Nevertheless there are at hand official a mans of de-
termining the question to the greatest exactnets, from,
the very massive lists of the orphans of naval and
military officers, who are sappotted (from extreme in,
fancy, since the year.lBos), by the. Comrassionate Fond,
and if this should be wished for by my iuperiots, there