Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, OCT. 20, 1900. The Vital Statistics.

Manawatu Herald, 20 October 1900, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, OCT. 20, 1900. The Vital Statistics.

♦ , Not many people seek for the Statis- J tics of the Colony of New Zealand • for light reading, but it pays well to j explore the pagos when desirous of ■ accounting for some apparently un- j expected result. Our readers may ! be getting tired of the oontinual harping of all our contemporaries upon the shortage in the birth-rate in the colony, but unless the matter is kept well before the public the i loss will be overlooked and the means towards its improvement like- . ' wiqo, Wp h»vo strong voMone why -we do not see fit to urge upon

parents to act differently to what -wo hope they arc doing, but we very much wish that our law-makers would get more interested than they are and work to better the condition of tho " masses " in the way of medical assistance, which would go a great way towards an increased birth-rate. To get the matter in as clear a light before our readers as we can with a view to a better understanding of the subject at a future time, we will put some facts before them which cannot be disputed. In the year 1890, when the population was 620,780 there were 18,278 births, equalling 29-41 to every 1000 of the population, which was equivalent to the birth-rate of London. Seeing the very different life which is led in the colony' to that led in London, we have to ask ourselves how it is that I tlio rate out here was not large:-. . V.'l^af. is a matter fov re^rot anil investigation is that ever since 1890 the rate has been lower and lower, never once has a succeeding year shown as large a proportion as the year proceeding until for 1899 we only get; the average of 25.12 per 1000, or a drop of 4.29 per 1000. In 1890 the marriage rate per 1000 of the population was 6.12, whereas in 1899 it rose to 7 28, therefore there were 1.16 more marriages and 4.29 less births per 1000, last year. It is recorded that in 1880 this colony had the highest birth-rate in all the Australasian colonies, but now it has sunk to the lowest ; Queensland having 27.81, the highest We have the satisfactory position of having fewer illegitimate births to the proportion ruling in the other colonies, but we must bear in mind that last year showed an increase 1.10. Last year there were 6,462 marriages, of which 1820 were by the Church of England, 873 by the Presbyterian Church, 594 by the Roman Catnolic Church, 951 by the Registrars, and the others by various Religious Bodies. Marriage by the Registrar is rather le^s frequont than it was seven years ago. Last year 115 bridegrooms and 1027 brides were under 21 years of age The proportion of men married is greatest at the ages of 25 to 30, and of women at from 21 to 25 years. It is, however, never too late to mend one's ways and the statistics record that 118 men over 60 entered into the matrimonial state, and out of the 13 men of 70 years of age and upwards, (of these 118) two married women of 40 years of age, one of 45, seven under 55 years of age, and the throe others took respectively giddy young things of 60, 65, and 70 years of ago. The odd combinations in matrimony are also worth noting, as 184 marriages were contracted between bachelors and widows, 252 between widowers and spinsters, and 120 between widowers and widows. Three males and six females who had been divorced are amongst the m images. How many stories of life could be written if the life history of some of the contracting parties could be made known. Amongst last year's marriages two married men a:iJ ILkLeeu married women elected to go through the form of marriage with other persons than those they had been united to, under the protection of the provisions of section 204, sub-section 5 of " The Criminal Code Act 1893," which is as follows : — " No one commits bigamy by going through a form of marriage if he or she has been continually absent from his or her wife or husband for seven years then last past, and is not proved to have known that his wife or her husband was alive during those seven years."