It is supposed in many parts of Australia that North Queensland is less salubrious than South Queensland, and that the Southern States are healthier than Queensland as a whole. The crude death rate does not give a basis for this assumption, because there are fewer old people and fewer young children per 1,000 of the population in sparsely peopled areas than in settled districts. The lightest average mortality is among persons between the ages of two and eighteen years; the greatest mortality among children under two years. Information is not procurable showing the number of persons in Queensland in age groups, this information being only obtainable in census years. The Queensland Government Statistician has furnished the accompanying table, based on the results of the censuses of 1891 and 1901, showing the relative salubrity of different parts of the Commonwealth in those two years for all the States save Western Australia; and it will be noticed that it differentiates also between children north and south of the Tropic of Capricorn in Queensland. These figures are valuable for comparative purposes. It will be noticed that among children under two years the rate of mortality north of the Tropic of Capricorn in 1891 was 74.85 per 1,000, and in 1901 73.42 per 1,000. South of the tropic the corresponding figures were 70.33 and 64.97 per 1,000 respectively, the difference in favour of the south being 4.52 and 8.45 per 1,000. Of children under five years in the north the mortality was 39.44 and 32.80 respectively; while south of the tropic it was 33.54 and 29.72 respectively. Thus the difference in favour of the south was 5.90 and 3.08 respectively. Above the age of five years the difference between north and south is rather more marked, but the comparison of these, for reasons analogous to those stated above with respect to comparative birth or death rates, is valueless. If we take the New South Wales figures, we find that as to children under two years the mortality in 1891 was 85.12, and in 1901 72.42 per 1,000. Thus North Queensland compares very favourably with the parent State by 10.27 in 1891, and unfavourably in 1901 by only 1 per 1,000. With South Queensland the comparison shows a difference against New South Wales in 1891 of 14.79 per 1,000, and of 7.45 per 1,000 in 1901. As to children under five years the difference in favour of New South Wales in 1891, as against North Queensland, was only 0.16 per cent., and in 1901 0.43 per 1,000; and as against South Queensland it was 5.74 on the wrong side in 1891, and 2.65 in 1901. It is needless further to analyse the figures, but evidently the only States whose mortality among young children is more favourable than South Queensland are South Australia and Tasmania.