Of late years attempts have been made to ascertain the degrees of such variations, and to establish, by different observations, some certainty as to the mortality of men at different ages. Were such observations sufficiently exact and numerous they would be admirably calculated to give a knowledge of the number of people, their increase, the consumption of provisions, and of a number of other important objects. Many writers of distinguished abilities, and, among others, Halley and Simpson, have given tables of the mortality of the human species; but as their labours have been confined to an examination of the bills of mortality in a few parishes of London, and other large cities, their researches, however accurate, seem, in my opinion, to give a very imperfect idea of the mortality of mankind in general.
In order to give a complete table of this nature it is necessary to scrutinise not only the parish-registers of such towns as London and Paris, where there is a perpetual ingress of strangers and egress of natives, but also those of different country places; that, by comparing the deaths which happen in the one with the deaths which happen in the other, a general conclusion may be formed. M. Dupré, of St. Maur, a member of the French academy, executed this project upon twelve different parishes in the country of France, and, three in Paris. Having obtained his permission to publish the tables he has drawn up on this occasion, I do it with the greater pleasure, as they are the only ones from which the probabilities of human life in general can with any certainty be established.
_PARISHES._ _deaths._| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | | | | Clemont 1391| 578| 73| 36| 29 Brinon 1141| 441| 75| 31| 27 Jouy 588| 231| 43| 11| 13 Lestiou 223| 89| 16| 9| 7 Vandeuvre 672| 156| 58| 18| 19 St. Agil 954| 359| 64| 30| 21 Thury 262| 103| 31| 8| 4 St. Amant 748| 170| 61| 24| 11 Montigny 833| 346| 57| 19| 25 Vieleneuve 131| 14| 3| 5| 1 Goussainville 1615| 565| 184| 63| 38 Ivry 2247| 686| 298| 96| 61 ----------------------------------+------+------+------+------ Total Deaths 10805| | | | ----------------------------------+------+------+------+------ Division of 10805 deaths into }| 3738| 963| 350| 256 the years they happened }| | | | | | | | Deaths before the end of the 1st,}| 3738| 4701| 5051| 5307 2d, 3d, &c. years. }| | | | | | | | Number of persons entered into }| 10805| 7067| 6104| 5754 their 1st, 2d, 3d, &c. years. }| | | | ==================================+======+======+======+====== St. Andre, Paris, 1728| 201| 122| 94| 82 St. Hippolytus, 2516| 754| 361| 127| 64 St. Nicolas, 8945| 1761| 932| 414| 298 ----------------------------------+------+------+------+------ Total Deaths 13189| | | | ----------------------------------+------+------+------+------ Division of the 13189 deaths into}| 2716| 1415| 635| 444 the years they happened. }| | | | | | | | Deaths before the end of the 1st,}| 2716| 4131| 4766| 5210 2d, 3d, &c. years. }| | | | | | | | Number of persons who entered }| 13189| 10473| 9058| 8423 into the 1st, 2d, &c. years. }| | | | ==================================+======+======+======+====== Division of the 23994 deaths in }| | | | the 3 parishes of Paris and the}| 6454| 2378| 985| 700 12 villages. }| | | | | | | | Deaths before the end of the 1st,}| 6454| 8832| 9817| 10517 2d, years, &c. out of the 23994}| | | | | | | | Number of persons entered into }| 23994| 17540| 15162| 14177 their 1st and 2d years, &c. }| | | |