NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1379, 27 March 1915, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

Do people live longer cwadays than in times past ? An affirmative answer is supplied by the Government statistician, who proves his point in a highly interesting series of tables published in the New Zealand Year Book.” Working on the basis of the census returns Irom the various quinquennial periods, the statisticians divide the results of their enquiry into two periods, that oi igoi-5 and 190610. The com plele tables, with explanations, will be issued later. Meanwhile, enough is published to show that the nearer the statisticians get to the present day the longer is the expectation of life and the less the rale of mortality. To take one sample from the tables showing the expectation of life (calculated upon mortality figures) ; It is shown that a male child aged one has a fair chance, on statistical evidence of what has happened before, to live another 63.125 years. At forty his expectation of life is set down at 31 }4 years, and if he has survived the bufferings of existence till the age of 58, the statisticians say he is likely, on the average, to be “good” for another 16,872 years. A woman of 50 has longer expectation of life, the period being calculated at 15.220 years.

Death has spared neither the great families nor the humble ones in Ibis great war. The Duke o( Wellington has lost a son, concerning whose military career very high hopes bad been expressed. All three ol the Duke’s sous entered the Grenadier Guards, and the elder two served in South Africa. The heir to the dukedom. Marquis Douro, resigned his commission, but Lord Richard Wellesley held a captaincy, and Lord George is a lieutenant. The name of this family was Colley, the grandfather ol the first Duke being the Richard Colley who was created Baron Morniuglcn in the Irish peerage. The Baron assumed the name of a cousin, Wesley—he was a relative ol ]ohu Wesley—and afterwards changed it to Wellesley. The second Baron was created Earl ot Mornington, and the Earl’s third son was the famous Duke ; the present Duke is a grandson of the first, His father was a major general, and he himself commanded the first battalion of the Grendier Guards.