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    Ho. 457, December 2^ 1858.] THE LEADEB, ...

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    Statistical Society. The Increased'numbe...

    liamentj many of the leading members of the Church and the Bar , not a few of theT most distinguished men in the medical and engineering professions , a considerable number of those holding governmental and other public appointments , and undoubtedly nearly all the boldest of those spirits ¦ w ho hare taken a prominent position in questions of national finance and sanitary reform . It . is not , therefore , surprising that a society so constituted

    and actively engaged in the discussion of not only the most grave , but also the most exciting topics of the day , should have displayed much vigour and great resources . It has been established just twenty-four years , and at this early period in its history the great economic principle of division and labour , which its own teachings have so fully illustrated in its application to manual industry lias already begun to exhibit its operations in the distribution of its votaries into distinct sectional societies for independent fields of inquiry .

    The twenty-one volumes of the Journal of the Statistical Society show that its members have been hitherto chiefly engaged on judicial , legal , military , and criminal statistics ; on ecclesiastical , university , educational , and school statistics ; on agricultural , mining , fishery ,- manufacturing , and commercial statistics ; and on the statistics of population , health , the distribution and consumption of the commodities of . life , public and private charity , and finance . Some time ago , the . JEpidcmio logical Society was established for the investigation of only a minor , although an important , branch of the

    general ' subject , of the statistics of health ; . another society , the Institute of Actuaries , lias also been formed , for the study of two of the questions which have , of all others , gained the most prominent place heretofore in the statistical , namely , health and finance ; and last , though not least , we have the grand Itinerating Social Congress , threatening to absorb nearly everything which the parent society in St . James ' s-square has to subsist upon . This greatest of all leviathans , destined to carry glad tidings to all ends of the earth , appropriates to her own use the whole range of judicial

    statistics , the entire scope of sanitary statistics , everything affecting industry , public instruction , provident institutions , and nearl y whatever else can be supposed to have any bearing on the social fabric of society under every possible aspect "" in which it may be viewed , including the statistics of life , consumption , and enjoyment . In fact , nothing but the mere crumbs shall henceforth he left for the poor Statistical—most ill-requited parent ! How , it may be asked , has this state of things arisen ? A thoroughly practical illustration was furnished at the meeting of the society on Tuesday last , when a the

    paper was read on the " Vital Statistics of Society of Friends . " The author of this communication quoted some fig ures showing the rapid declension of his society during the last one hundred and fifty years ; and this decadency having been viewed through the medium of vital statistics , it might have been expected that it was intended to show that the physical powers and constitution of that peculiar but respected and sedate people had some influence on their decreasing numbers . It might have been expected that any formal inquiry of this sort would at the least have shown the actual ratio of births and marriages , and whether such unions wcro less or more fruitful than in other

    classes of tho community ; whether marriages amongst them' were contracted at earlier or later periods of life ; and whether celibacy existed in _ a higluer or lower degree than amongst others . This was , however , not attempted . ' . Those who arc in the hnbit . of reading the reports of the Registrar-Gcnoml cannot have failed to observo the port inacious uniformity with which he porsevcrcs to ohroniclo that in each of the districts , A ., B ., C , & c , throughout the alphabet , tho births , lnarringcs , and deaths , lmvo been exactly equal to onp per annum in so many of tho population of tho respective districts . To mere cursory and

    occasional readers , this kind of infbriruitioii may bo perhaps ample and suflloicnt to satisfy their idle curiosity , but for scientific and useful purposes much moro is required , In fact , unle & s moro prcciao mid accurate conclusions wore subniililed to tho public , such statements , although strictly those of lacts , nevertheless seriously mislcnd ; ami it is in this sense that facts may bo truly said to prove anything . No dootrino in vital statistics is now better established , or moro generally admitted , than that tho ago of tho individual members is tho clement winch of all others oxoroisoa tho most powerful influonco on tho ratios of births , marriages ,

    and deaths , in the communities to which they belong ; Were any such inquiry instituted into the populations inhabiting the Greenwich , Chelsea , or Foundling Hospitals , it must be evident , to every one that ifc would be ridiculous to compare the results with those for the whole of the kingdom , or any considerable district of it , placed under more normal conditions than those hospitals are ; yet such would be a fair specimen , although intensified in degree , of the kind of information , constantly issuing from the archives of the Rfegistrar-General . For example , were it stated that the ratio of marthe counties of

    riages to the whole population of Anglesea , Carmarthen , and Dorset , were to that in the counties of Lancaster , Middlesex , and Monmouth , as 8 is to 11 , it would usually be concluded that in the latter three counties the tendency to marriage was higher by 37 per cent . It , however , happens that the population at the most marriageable ages in the first group of counties is to that in the second group in exactly the same ratio of 8 to 11 , and , therefore , the tendency in both would be the same . The statements in the Registrar-General ' s reports are , however , usually made without regard to such necessary corrections . The preceding are not the only districts of the kingdom

    in which unequal distributions of the population according to age will be found . There are , in fact , no two districts in which there exists , in this x-espect , an agreement . Even in different divisions of the metropolis there are the most marked disparities . Were the tendency to marriage identical in Bethnal ^ -green and St . George ' s , Hanoversquare , there would still be an ' apparent increase in the one of 21 per cent , over the other . Still tin s is a true sample of the intellectual food supplied under Act of Parliament to the people . Why does some statistical Dr . Hassal not arise to analyse its impurities ? Errors precisely similar in their nature vitiate the statements submitted to the

    public in respect to the ratio of births and deaths . If at the marria g eable ages there is in any district a minimum of population , there will , under a normal tendency to marriage , be of necessity a low ratio of births in relation to the whole of its inhabitants ; but should there be a maximum population at those ages , then the ratio of births will be high . So , in like manner , the number o persons at the middle period of life be small , will the average mortality of the whole district be high , from the fact of death being more frequent amongst young children and aged people , and the contrary result would appear should there be a preponderance of inhabitants of

    from membership , and to cause them to pass from under further observation , and from that period of life their issue and the mortality amongst themselves and children cease to be recorded . More than a moiety of the most vital life and blood of the society being for a protracted period of years thus constantly draining off into the general mass of the people . The community of Friends must have for lone beenin avery abnormal condition in regard to the orainary forces which , regulate the phenomena , of births , marriages , and deaths . In this respect it stands in . a relation to the general population ; of

    this country almost as peculiar as the hospitals we have referred to . How then can . a comparison ,, with any propriety or with any practical or useful end . in view , be made between results derived from such sources and those deduced from the experience of the country at large ? In both series of deductions , corrections should have been applied so asto make the conclusions truly represent the respective influence of the same causes and conditions in each-If the data at command were in too crude 3 shape

    to admit of this being done , then the attempt made proceeded either on an unpardonable ignorance of the present condition o the statistical mind ,, or on a bold hardihood equally inexcusable on other grounds , and still the effort was singularly successful in passing the ordeal of the Statistical Society . At the conclusion of the reading of the paper the most diligent and acute listeners -were just as well informed , and no more so , than they happened to be before the reading commenced . It was impossible it could be otherwise . of Friends

    The decession from the community , of so many members , at the most vitalised period of life , was of itself sufficient to fully account for all the results assumed to be peculiar to it-The one stood in strict logical sequence to the other , and the fact of the disovraments by the society , for what b y its rules are considered as irregular marriages , having been once affirmed , the application of simple , well-understood arithmetical laws were of themselves only needed to disclose all the other phenomena in the discovery of which , the writer of the paper expended so muck valuable time , the society so long deliberated ,, and with the results of which every one was sov

    mightily pleased . No physical , social , or moral condition peculiar to Friends could be detected which was calculated to exercise any influence on either the health or productive functions of the staid and exemplary Quakers . The relation of supply and demand by the statistical appetite is surely not so perturbatcd as to cause its committee of management to allow whatever may be offered in the market to-50 off at the fancy prices of Tuesday evening last , 'he London Statistical Society was the first formed iii Europe—it was the harbinger of free trade , the authoritative organ of public health , the only true

    middle age . These observations will lead to a clearer understanding of the course , followed b y the author of the paper read to the Statistical Society on the 21 st instant . Taking the average ratios given in the returns of the Registrar-General as exhibiting the normal conditions of the population at large , he proceeded , in the treatment of his subject , to deduce results in a corresponding manner from , the data available in regard to the Society of Friends . If it be held that the objects of a learned body , meeting from time to time during tho scientific session , be to evoke not only the truths and laws of nature ,

    exponent of the great commercial doctrines of national finance , by which our commerces has gaineda mastery over every rival , and it is the first publicbody which ever took any effective part in promoting sound and trustworthy benefit-provident institutions amongst the industrial classes . We have , therefore , too lively an interest in its prdv sperity , and too sanguine hopes of its futurity , to > admit without more direct proofs than we yet possess that the epidemiological , the aotuaries , and the monster leviathan of social science , can have possibly carried off from it the best papers of a

    stabut to attain and employ correct methods of investigation , then the exhibition of Tuesday last is well calculated to produce , or at least lend force , to the causes which occasion the formation of so many societies bidding for the honour of scientific distinction . The mode of treatment was wrong in two discreditable ways . Firstly , the results furnished by tho Registrar-General neither represent tho normal conditions of any one district of the kingdom , nor oi * the whole pojsulation in ; the aggregate . At every census in whioh distinction 01 age has been recognised , it lias been found that , owing to emigration and many other causes , there has been a somewhat remarkable difference observed in

    tistica'l character so as to leave it the residuum only of a preferential selection . This can scarcely be possible—it is not at all convenient , nor , under existing circumstances , prudent to believe so without better evidence . It can be of no interest or service to statesmen , to legislators , to those standing high in either clerical or legal positions , to philanthropists devoted to the attainment of healthy moral and physical conditions for the people , to men earnest in their endeavours to establish safe ana honest principles of finance , to allow , speaking comparatively , and without any intontion or wish toinstitutions to which have

    the distribution of population over the various terms of life , and henco , had tho foroes producing birth , marriage , and death been constant throughout the whole of tho period under review , still the methods followed by tlio Registrar-General would have exhibited results quite us surprising , but loss amusing , than tho " Merry Monarch ' s " problem of a , dead boing much moro ponderous than a living gudgeon ; secondly , the modo of treatment was wrong in comparing things whioh wero "obviously , from tho description of tjio facts themsoltos , not at nil comparable In reading the paper it was stated that owing to certain rules of discipline regulating tho Society of Frioncls , out of ovcry 105 marriages taking placo amongst its mombors , 55 wero contracted wider suoh circumstances as to exclude thorn

    reflect on the other we referred , that these offshoots could possibly have as yet' exercised sufficient influence on the publicmind to interfere with and mar the purposes and aims of the Statistical Society . This brings us to tho solution of the problem we had proposed to ourselves when first feeling constrained as journal / sfs to stop out of our way todisouss a question which at first sight seems to pe uninvitfng , but which is of great imU really national importance . ¦ , 3 , Ho circumstances winch regulate ana determine tho selection of thoso papers fitting to bo road to

    Ho. 457, December 2^ 1858.] The Leadeb, ...

    Ho . 457 , December 2 ^ 1858 . ] THE LEADEB , 1413

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 24, 1858, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24121858/page/19/