Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1875-03-31
The Longevity of Women.

The London Times says: AT the
monthly meeting of the Institute OF
Actuaries, held recently at Kings Col
lege, Somerset House, an interesting
paper on the duration of female life
as distinct from that of the male sex,
was read by Mr.. Cornelius WalfOrd,
+. ;. ). He showed that the subject
was one which had not attracted much
special attention till a comparatively
recent period, DIR. HALEY, of Breslau.
who wrote in 1893, having evidently
supposed both sexes to be equally long
lived. Maitland, in his History of
London published in 1873, was of
opinion that the old idea of there being
more females than males IN the world
was fallacy, the chrlstenIngs OF boys
within the Bills of Mortality beng
three per cent. greater than those OF
girls. kersebOom, in his Investigations
into the mortality of Dutch annuitants
in 1742, separated the male nom the
female lives; but he does not appear in
his tables to have noted any difference
in their relative longevity. -Four years
later VI. DepaTcieuX, in his observations
on the nominees of French Tontines,
laws il down that the expectancy of
life is greater in the female than in the
male at all ages: but he does not deter
mine the precise ratio. 1t was the
'Euuitable' Society which, III 1862, first
aDproximatcd to the truth of the matter
by making a distinction of rates of pre-
MUM for each sex, and taking no
female lives under fifty years of age as
insurers except at special rates. The
well known DIR. Price, great authority
on insurance matters, IN Ills speaks
incidentally of the greater morality OF
males as compared with females, as
being generally acknowledged; and
Brand, speaking of the 'Amicable, says
that in it the life of a woman as com
pared with that of a man Is OF the same
proportion us two Ia one Mr.. L.
Chester, in 1888, asserted that the differ
cnce between male and female lives
was in favor of the latter; and the
same rule was laid down IN some
Swedish Tables constructed by Dr.
Price about the same date. 1t is only
in the fifth edition of his work on this
subject that DR.. Price appears to have
woke up To the importance of the ques-
ton. in tine interest of insurance COM
panies. MIR. Walford then quoted the
statements of the Carlisle Tables. Of
the Parliamentary Committee of 1877,
of NJ. Quetelet, of Messrs. Bailey and
Day. of Mr.. Fmlaison, Nc., as on the
whole showing that from first to last
the expectancy of life Is greater in the
female than in the male sex. Tine same
result was arrived at from certain
statistics of uninsured lives among the
higher and wealthier classes, which
were obtained and tabulated in 1874; a
result which may be expressed in the
following terms viz, that at every age
the aggregate mortality from birth up
to such age is greater among males
than among females; and that out OF
the same number of each sex, born
alive, fewer males than females survive
to any given age On the whole the
above statement is confirmed, added
the reader of the paper, by the expert
ence of foreign countries, both on the
I Continent and in America. But this
must be understood with some qualIti-
cation: for, strangely enough, while
the expectancy of life is greater gener-
/ ally among women than men, most
offices find that of a given number of
/ insured lives more women die than
men. This, however, was 10 be
accounted for by the fact that whereas
male insurers are drawn from all
classes, only one small class of females,
as rule, seek to insure their lives
namely, women In state of actual or
expcctant pregnancy; and here, as he
/ believed, lay the secret of the anomaly
which had been observed"