Wednesday for Weddings

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 189, 31 October 1927, Page 8

Wednesday for Weddings

Preferences Exposed in Statistics

Births, Deaths, Marriages —and Malingerers

BRIDES prefer Wednesdays. The claim is jriveu the weight of statistical authority by the records of 19-6, when 43 pez - cent, of the year’s weddings were celebrated on Wednesdays. Friday, on the contrary, was avoided with a. consistency that is a tine tribute to superstition. On that day were tied only five per cent, of the knots.

“fT'VEN a marked preference for Wed- -*-•* nesdays did not prevent the uniting couples from showing distaste for unlucky number 13. In the ponderous report on the vital statistics of the Dominion are set out the 17 days on which most marriages were celebrated. Sixteen of them are Wednesdays, and the odd 17th was Easter Monday. And yet -when Wednesday coincided ■with the 13th of any month, it was avoided almost like the plague. There were two such occasions last year, and on those days the number of weddings i-b * H m * W

dropped to 33 and 25, compared with the general Wednesday average of 89. The average age of 1926 bridegrooms was 29, and the average bride -was three years younger. Altogether there were 10,680 marriages during the year, including 3,575 in the Auckland Province, and 2,428 in Wellington Province. The June quarter was distinctly the most popular for marriages, and in that period, which covers Easter, Auckland registered 1,030 weddings, against 897 in the December quarter. Holiday times such as Christmas or Easter -were favoured by the couples taking the plunge, and December 22. was the busiest day, 167 couples being joined on that occasion. ROMANCE AND TRAGEDY Thus is blossoming romance packed into serried figures in that weighty volume, the report on statistics. Crammed with towering tabulations and impressive long tots, the book conceals much that appears to be merely lumber; and much besides, that is interesting and valuable. Its tidy columns are the mathematician’s exract of the romance and adventure, pain and pathos, of a year of the Dominion’s life. Pages and pages of hospital statistics are an

analvsis of diseases rife anion? the t people. The toll of life at the railway crossing, the spectacular tragedy of an airplane's crash, or the fatal twist that leads men to murder and suicide — any of these is registered in terms of: sober figures. Take birth. In the 12 months covered by the statistics, 25.473 children were ! born in New Zealand, and 1,132 of them died before they had been a year in existence. The illegitimacy rate j showed a disquieting rise, a develop- 1 ment attributed by statisticians to the Dunedin Exhibition. In the Auckland j urban area the total births were 3.665,1 which is second only to 1924’s 3,537. AUCKLAND’S BIRTH-RATE The months in which most of Auckland’s babies were born were Novem- J ber, December, January, and April. January’s figures were the highest, and February’s the lowest. Auckland’s birth-rate was 19.07 a 1,000 of population. Wellington’s was 19.03, Christchurch 18.82, and Dunedin 16.50. The centres with the highest birth-rates were New Plymouth, Hamilton, and Gisborne. Gisborne, curiously enough, rejoices also in an exceptionally high deathrate, 10.38 a 1,000, compared with Auckland’s 9.42. Napier (11.26) has the highest death-rate, yet Hastings, i 12 miles away, has the lowest, 7.51 a 1,000 of population. The span of normal life is extending. ; In 1926 more men died at the advanced ; age of 76 than at any other age, and in Auckland four of those who passed on were centenarians. The Maori death-rate has fallen appreciably, from 17.15 in 1922 to 10.96 in 1926. So, too, has the death-rate from tuberculosis, but cancer’s increasing roll of victims must occasion alarm. There were 1,341 cancer deaths —the highest number yet recorded —in New Zealand In 1926, and of these 170 were in Auckland and 146 in Wellington. Accidents accounted for many deaths, and motor fatalities exacted a particularly heavy toll, 149 for the year. Of these 42, a severe proportion, occurred in Auckland, which had more fatal motor smashes than Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin put together. Auckland also had, rather unenviably, an excess in the matter of suicides, of which there were 24 here for the year. MALINGERERS IN HOSPITAL The Government statistician’s painstaking tabulations permit the investigator to trace every affliction which has caused hospital beds to be occupied during the year. Auckland, it is disclosed, has the busiest hospital, an institution which treated 7,967 patients during the year. Wellington hospital had 6,820 patients, and Christchurch 5,997, while Napier, with 3,387, is shown to have been the busiest hospital outside the four centres. In all the public hospitals 68,391 people were treated during 1926. They suffered from an amazing variety of ailments—there was even a case of beri-beri, as well as 25 instances in which the diagnosis was “malingering”—otherwise the ancient army pastime of “swinging the lead.”