Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 August 2016
In a note in the introduction to Milne's Treatise on Annuities, the author remarks—“There can, I think, be no doubt but that the mortality is greater among the higher than the middle classes of society. They form too small a proportion of the population to have any sensible effect here; but it would be of importance to the Life Offices to determine the law of mortality among them.” Since the publication of this work, forty-six years ago, some attempts have been made to test the accuracy of this assertion, and to supply the desideratum; but none with which we are acquainted are by any means conclusive.
page 311 note * In this Society, the annual mortality per cent. among the males has been found to be at the ages 20-29, ·881; and at the ages 30-39, ·782. Our information on the subject is derived from a most complete and interesting paper “On the Vital Statistics of the Society of Friends,” by Joseph John Fox, read before the Statistical Society, 21st December, 1858.