244 WILLIAMS' CASE.—3 BLAND.

than of males. 1 Price Obser. 8, 89, 95, 129, 136, 232; 2 Price
Obser. 43; Rees' Cyclo. v. Marriage and Mortality; 9 Westm. Rev.
397, 398; Seybert Stat. An, 44; 2 Southern Rev. 177. There is, how-
ever, some reason to believe, that although an unquestionable state
of celibacy, as that of the condition of nuns in a convent, has no
effect in shortening female life before fifty; yet that after that age
the mortality among them becomes more severe. Finlaisow's Rep.
8; 2 Price Obser. 132. So that it must be regarded as an estab-
lished truth, and a general rule, that there is something in the
physical constitution of males more frail and delicate than in those
of females; or that, in general, there is a greater degree of tenacity
of life in females than in males. 2 Price Obser. 111, 230. And it
must likewise be borne in mind, that in fixing a general rule, or
adjusting a table of the duration of human life, so far as any judi-
cial inquiry is concerned, the object is not to lay down a rule which
may be safely or profitably followed by an insurance company, but
to establish the truth, which involves nothing more than a con-
sideration of those facts in relation to the actual continuance of
human life in the place where the specified life exists, so as to cal-
culate from them a proper average as to its reasonably expected
duration.

It seems to be generally admitted, that marriages are not more
fruitful now than in past ages, and in stages of society having
much less of the comforts, or even of the necessaries of life, than
at present; that the poor bring forth more children than the rich,
but preserve fewer; 9 Westm. Rev. 413; and yet that the population
increases much more rapidly in modern than in ancient times. 2
Southern Rev. 178; 9 Westm. Rer. 402. These facts only shew,
however, that the present is more friendly to human life than the
past state of society; and that the probability, as well as the
average duration, or mean term of life, as people advance from a
savage to a highly civilized state of society, have improved with
their improved habits and condition; which has certainly been the
case in England, and much more so in France since the revolution
in that country. 1 Malth. Popu. 52, 385, 401, 413; 1 Price Obser.
182, 186; 9 Westm. Rev. 388, 395, 398, 399; 2 Southern Rev. 175.
The duration of the lives of those who come into existence, is not
only very materially affected by the greater abundance of the
means of subsistence with the increase and variety of comforts to
be had, in a generally improved state of society, but also by the
climate and salubrity of the country* or situation in which
231 such lives happen to be placed, as well as the political
causes, such as the arbitrary nature of the government, or the
grade of society under which they may be cast. 2 Southern Rev.
186. It has been observed, from a very remote period, that the
high and mountainous regions of Germany have always been much
more healthy than the low margins of its great rivers and sea