ENUMERATIONS.
The number of the people in the several intervals of age, which we have stated above to be of so much importance, may be disposed in tables exactly simi lar to B or b, recommended for the deaths ; but it is not necessary that the duration of life should be di vided into the same intervals for the living as the dead. It is always desirable that the intervals should, in both cases, be small ; but yet not so small, as, by the increase of labour, to occasion the numbers be ing determined with less exactness, or to deter many from engaging in the work. Such intervals should not, however, exceed ten years.
When the bills are given for a certain period, if' there be but one enutheration of the people, it should be made at the middle of the period ; if two, at its extremities ; and if more than two, it is desirable that they should be made at equal intervals of time throughout theperiod.
We give no forms here of Bills of Mortality and Fecundity, designed to distinguish legitimate from il legitimate children, or the mortality or fecundity of each month of the year, nor the number of women delivered annually at the different periods of life, nor the diseases the deaths were occasioned by. Neither are.the forms here recommended for enumerations of the people, calculated to distinguish the numbers Bills in the different states of childhood, celibacy, mar-____ riage, or widowhood ; nor the ranks, or professions, or occupations of the people. All these things are
curious, and of some use, although, if we except the diseases which the deaths of each sex at the different ages were occasioned by, they are of little value is comparison with the information the forms here given are calculated to convey. And it is of so much im portance that that information should be given cor rectly, that we would willingly forego these minor objects, to avoid dividing and fatiguing the attention. of those who undertake the more important part of the task, which is of itself sufficiently laborious.
And those who may be disposed to keep registers, and form bills and enumerations, on a scale so much extended as to include all these particulars, or most of them, and have also the requisite qualifications, will find no great difficulty in preparing the most convenient forms of tables for the purpose. Several forms of that description, with references to others, will be found in Mr Milne's Treatise on Annuities