It will be seen from these figures that the death rate among the single is in all the more advanced years of life higher than among the married. The probable explanation of this, however, is not that the married state is better physiologically, as has been so often claimed, but that it is better socially. These figures are a testimony, in other words, to the social advantages of the home. Single persons, particularly in the more advanced years of life, who are without homes, are more liable to fall sick, and when sick are less liable to receive proper care. That these figures show the great social advantage of the home in preserving life is evident from the fact that among the widowed males, whose homes have been broken up, the death rate is higher even than among the single males. Moreover, in interpreting such statistics we must bear in mind that the unmarried in the higher ages of life are made up very often of those who are relatively abnormal, either physically or mentally, that is, of the biologically unfit. Inasmuch as the single persons include many of this class, and also lack the comforts of home, it is not surprising that the death rate is much higher among them. (6) Infantile mortality is one of the most interesting phases of vital statistics. We have already said that the death rate is a good rough measure of a people's civilization. Even more can we say that the death rate among children, particularly those under one year of age, is an index to a people's sanitary and moral condition. Taking the world as a whole, it is still estimated that one half of all who are born die before the age of five years. This represents an enormous waste of energy. Even in many of the most civilized countries the death rate among children, and especially among infants under one year of age, is still comparatively high. Most of this death rate is unnecessary, could be avoided, and, as we have already said, represents a waste of life. Dr. Newman [Footnote: In his work on _Infant Mortality_.] gives the following statistics for different civilized countries for the ten-year period of 1894-1903. These statistics, we may note, are based on the percentage of deaths among children under one year of age and not upon the one thousand of their population. In Russia, 27 per cent of all children born during the ten-year period of 1894-1903 died the first year; in Germany, 19.5 per cent; in Italy, 17 per cent; in France, 15.5 per cent; in England, 15 per cent; in Ireland, 10 per cent; in Norway, 9.4 per cent; in New Zealand, 9.7 per cent; while in the United States in 1900, according to the census, 16.2 per cent of all children born in the registration area died the first year.