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96
mortality among young children.
here, but use of them is made in the text. Before passing to a consideration of the
summaries of the life tables which have been prepared, attention may be called to certain
irregularities in the px columns for which no explanation can at present be offered. If the
figures be examined carefully it will be seen that—to take the case of the ages under one
week—the pv values increase fairly steadilv (both for males and for females) up to the age
of five days, and that there is in nearly every quinquennial period a lower value for the age
six days. Similar irregularities may be observed in certain of the values for the ages three
weeks, six and (or) seven months and eleven months. As already observed no explanation
can at present be offered for these irregularities, but it is hoped that further analysis of the
records may clear the point up.*
It is very difficult to assimilate the meaning of a long series of figures such as that
presented in Tables II and IIa, hence tables giving the numbers of survivors at selected ages,
and the numbers dying during the periods included between those ages, have been prepared.
For the sake of clearness it has been thought desirable to exclude the figures for ages over
one year from the tables dealing with ages under one year. It should, however, be borne in
mind that the figures in the two sets of tables are the results of uninterrupted calculations
starting from one datum onlv, viz.: an assumed total of 100,000 births of each sex.
Table 1 shows the numbers of survivors at the selected ages, and Table 2 the number^
dying between these ages. The former table is to be read thus—On the experience of the five
years 1891-95 of 100,000 children born alive, 98,743 would survive the first day of life (i.e.,
would reach the age of one day), 97,385 would survive the first week and attain the age of

one week, and so on. In each (sex) section of the table it will be seen that the numbers of
survivors according to the experience of 1896-1900 were fewer than those for any other quinquennial
period, and that in the two later periods there were steadv increases in the numbers
surviving. Comparing the last period with the first there were 3,719 more children (of both
sexes) alive at the end of the year than in the first. The index numbers for the survivors
attaining the age of one year are given below.

*The data possessed by the Department furnish valuable material for work, and it is hoped to submit a
more detailed report on the subject at some future date.