A

SUPPLEMENT',

CONTAINING

Additional Observations on the Duration of Human Life in different Situations; and on the Population of the Kingdom.

SINCE the first publication of this work, I have had the pleasure of reading an ingenious Memoir on the State of Population in the Pais de Vaud, a district of the province of Bern in Switzerland. The author of this memoir is Mr. Muret, the first minister at Vevey, a town in that district, and secretary to the Economical Society there. It forms the first part of the Bern Observations for the year 1766; and a good abstract of it may be found in the 69th article of a work entitled, De Re Rustica, or the Repository. It contains an account of many facts which appear to me curious and important; and

This supplement was an addition to this Treatise in the Second and Third Editions of it. I have in the present Edition added to it a Postscript, containing a review of the arguments for and against the increasing population of the kingdom,

which

which confirm the observations I have made in the two preceding Essays.-Some of these facts I will here recite.

In the first Essay I have asserted, that there is a much greater difference between the probabilities of the duration of life in great towns and in country parishes, than is commonly suspected; and, as one proof of this, I have observed, that though in London the greatest part of the natives die under three years of age, in the country the greater part live to marry. Mr. Muret's Observations and Tables give a distinct demonstration of this, by shewing, that in the province of Vaud, the greater part of the inhabitants live many years beyond the age of maturity.— But to be a little more explicit.

The district of Vaud, in Switzerland, contains 112,951 inhabitants of all ages; 25,778 families; 38,328 married persons: and the annual medium of births, for 10 years before 1766, had been 3155; of weddings, 808; of deaths, 2504.-It appears, therefore, that the married are very nearly a third part of the inhabitants, that the number of persons to a family is 4; and that one in 45 of the inhabitants die annually. It may be further learnt (by dividing half the number of the married by the annual medium of weddings), that the expectation of marriage in this country is 23 years and; and (from the proportions of the births, weddings, and deaths) that

T

b See the note, p. 37, &c.

the

the greater part of those who are born live to marry. But of this fact there is, I have just intimated, a more particular and distinct proof. From a Table given by Mr. Muret, of the rate of human mortality in this country (derived from registers kept in 43 parishes, of the ages at which the inhabitants die), it appears, that one half of all that are born live beyond 41 years of age.-The examination of this Table will, undoubtedly, be a gratification to the reader; and, therefore, I have chosen to make it a part of these additions. See p. 123. I have also given a Table which I have formed from a register in Susmilch's works, of the ages at which the inhabitants of a country parish in BRANDENBURGH died, during 50 years, ended at 1759.-And I have further thought proper to add, 'as contrasts to these Tables, two Tables exhibiting the probabilities of life at VIENNA and BERSee p. 124, 125, and 126.

LIN.

The following observations concerning these Tables should be attended to.

The Table for the country of VAUD, though it gives the probabilities of life in its first stages very high; and, at some ages, more than double to the probabilities of life in great cities; yet, certainly, gives them too low. For, first, it has just appeared, that in this country the births exceed considerably the deaths. The emigrations, likewise, from it are very numerous, as will be presently observed: and the necessary effect of these

two causes is, to make the registers give the number of deaths in the first stages of life too great in comparison of the deaths in the last stages. A Table formed from such registers must give the probabilities of life too low, according to the observations in the Second Essay, and in the introduction to the following Collection of Tables.

common.

After 40, the probabilities of living in this country decrease very fast; and, after 65, they appear to be rather lower than is Mr. Muret has taken notice of this fact, and ascribes it to the particular prevalency of drunkenness in his country. He had, he says, once the curiosity to examine the register of deaths in one town, and to mark those whose deaths might be imputed to drunkenness; and he found the number so great, as to incline him to believe, that hard drinking kills more of mankind, than pleurisies and fevers, and all the most malignant distempers.

The former of these observations is applicable to the Table for the country parish in Brandenburgh; for it appears from Susmilch's account, that the births there exceed the deaths more than in the country of VAUD; nor is it to be imagined, that there are not likewise many emigrations from it,

See the remarks on Table LII. in the following collection.

particularly,

particularly, to BERLIN and the King of Prussia's armies.

From the Tables for VIENNA and LONDON, compared with the Table for BERLIN, it appears, that the last of these towns, though much the smallest, has at some ages even a worse effect on the duration of life, than either of the former: And the reason, perhaps, may be, that the inhabitants there are much more crowded together. See p. 67. Between the ages of 30 and 35, and also between 42 and 52, there is an irregularity in the BERLIN Table, which, very probably, would not have appeared in it, had it been formed from the bills for a longer term of years.

From the age of 25 to 45, VIENNA appears, in the Tables, to be less unfavourable to life than LONDON; but it cannot be depended upon that this is the truth, for the VIENNA Table may give the probabilities of living at these ages higher, only because the recruits from the country come to it later, or in greater numbers, after 30 and 40, than in LONDON. A like effect would also arise from a greater number of migrations in old age from LONDON than from VIENNA.

In forming the Tables for VIENNA and BERLIN, I have applied the correction explained in the Second Essay, and demonstrated there to be necessary; and, in making this correction, I have supposed, agreeably to the proportion of the births to the burials, that

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