When an observation has been made for the purpose of determining the mortality which has prevailed during a specified time in the community observed upon, it is usually found that the series of probabilities of living a year, at the various ages thence deduced, is very far from conforming to our ideas of what an exponent of the law of mortality ought to be. Instead of a series exhibiting throughout its extent a gradual and progressive change of value in passing from each term to the next, we have one showing but a faint approach to the desired regularity. This is just what, from the circumstances in which such observations are usually made, we ought to expect. It is not often that the community subjected to observation is sufficiently large, or that the period during which it is so subjected is sufficiently extended, to furnish us with such a series of average results as can alone fitly figure forth the law of mortality.

It will no doubt be in the recollection of many of our readers, that some few years ago attempts were made by the Council of the Institute to collect, from the Offices willing to contribute the results of their experience, such information connected with the extra risks undertaken by them as might afford the means of determining, if not exactly, at least with some approach to accuracy, the proper rates of premium to meet them. The Council made application to all the existing Companies; but did not succeed, unfortunately, in obtaining returns from more than fifty-two of them. These fifty-two Companies, however, were at the pains to supply as many as 6,154 cases—each of them of a special nature, as regarded unusual hazard to life arising from residence in foreign climates, or from particular pursuits; but so infinitely varied in their conditions and circumstances were they, that it became immediately obvious that considerable difficulty would arise as to grouping them into classes which should be sufficiently well defined to yield results of a useful and practical character. If, on the one hand, the conditions of the risk were kept within limits sufficiently restricted, the numbers in each class were all but insignificant; and if, on the other, attempts were made to remedy this last inconvenience, the groups comprised risks which were altogether heterogeneous.

John Rowe was the author of an Introduction to the Doctrine of Fluxions, which reached its third edition in 1776. The work was then advertised with an extract of a letter to the author “from the learned and well known Reverend J. Stubbs, M.A., Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford,” setting forth that he had received Rowe's valuable present, and was much surprised to find it so prodigiously improved. Indeed, it so much resembled a new work, when compared with the first edition, that he wished no mention had been made of its being the third, but that the two former editions should be left to be forgotten.

Among the many curious facts relative to the duration of human life which have resulted from the persevering inquiries of persons interested in Life Assurance Offices, one very essential question appears to me to have been left undecided—namely, whether, and in what degree, a diet of vegetable food alone increases the length of life. The Vegetarian Society of Manchester pretend, not only that pure vegetable diet renders man almost exempt from many of the most fatal complaints to which we are subject, but also, that it has actually prolonged the average duration of human life. To this question I beg leave to call the attention of your readers: I should like to see it fully investigated and developed. My attention has been directed to the effects of different sorts of food on different kinds of constitution for many years past, and the conclusion to which I have come is certainly in the highest degree favourable to the views of the Society alluded to, particularly as respects longevity, to which the pure vegetarian diet seems to be particularly favourable. Now this circumstance, of which I have not the least doubt, brings the question of diet immediately into the category of facts which are the proper objects of inquiry for all Assurance Companies. Having thus ventured to call the attention of these Companies to the subject, I shall take the liberty of submitting the following facts and experiments to the notice of your readers: they are the result of nearly half a hundred years' observation and experience, made in various countries of Europe.

That the difference is due to the greater amount of attention and of comforts the officer by his position is enabled to secure, appears from the facts relating to the siege of Gibraltar and the battle of Toulouse. At the former, officers were as favourably situated as it is possible to be during actual hostilities, except for a short time when there was a scarcity of provisions; and of 35 that were wounded, only 1 died—a mortality very little more than one third of that in the field. The battle of Toulouse was fought, immediately before the cessation of hostilities, close to a large city, which afforded ample accommodation for the wounded; and out of 117 officers brought to the hospitals there, only 3 died, being 1 in 39, or a less proportion than at Gibraltar.