TAW OF AVERAGE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 383, 27 February 1908, Page 2

TAW OF AVERAGE.

Fearful aud wonderful is the law of averages, as the return of the year’s inquests shows. In 1906 the number of fires that occurred requiring an inquest was 94, and in 1907 it was 91. The number of deaths from non-natural causes in 1906 was 1167, and in 1907 it was 1 x 20. The number of deaths from drunkenness was 94 in 1906, and xox in 1907. Murders, suicides; and accidental deaths, “not elsewhere included,” as the tariff puts it, were 1026 in 1906; and 1066 in 1907. The figures are so close in each sub-division that an observer is driven to marvel at the relative constancy of the causation. The ancient,, aud according to some wise people, exploded idea of predestination, seei»S to .fit in very

well with the law of averages. •It appears tu be perfectly true to say that out of eveiy 100,000 people living under given circumstances, a certain mini her will infallibly die of drink dining lire ensuing year ; a certain number will commit suicide; a certain number will be murdered; and a ceitain number will be victims of street accidents, drowning, and other forms of sudden and violent deaths. A casuist may ask ; “ What becomes of the doctrine of free will, therefore?” How can a man be said to exercise Fee will if the law of averages prescribes, as it does, according to the statistics quoted, that one man in every 3000 of the population will inevitably drink •himself to death during the ensuing year ? The odds are 5000 to one against any particular individual expiring as a result of intemperance during the next 12 months. That is long odds, but it shows that the drink fiend has always an outside chance, at any rate. The salest plan, therefore, (or uneasy calculators, must be to slick to lemonade. But the law of average has conferred one immense benefit on mankind. It has enabled insurance companies to be formed, so that the wives and families of the unfortunate scapegoats who die violent deaths every year, in order that the inexorable law may be fulfilled, can be provided for.