There is reason to believe that the mortality at present throughout Europe, taking all countries together, including towns and villages, and combining all classes into one aggregate, is one in thirty-six. Süssmilch, a celebrated German writer, who flourished about the middle of the last century, estimated it at this average at that period. The result of all Mr. Finlaison's investigations is a conviction that the average for the whole of Europe does not materially differ at the present time. He has ascertained by an actual observation, that in the year 1832 it was precisely this in the town of Ostend. Taking this town, then, as the subject of comparison, it is found that the probable duration of life among the male sex at Ostend exceeds the Roman allowance by the following number of years; namely, At the age of 17, the excess in round numbers is 5 years. 22 " " 5 27 " " 5 32 " " 5 37 " " 3 42 " " 3 47 " " 5 52 " " 5 57 " " 4 62 " " 4 67 " " 2 72 " " 1 77 " " 0 But it is not improbable that the Romans made some deduction from what they knew to be the real value of life among the citizens of Rome, on account of the use of the money appropriated to the aliment, which the purchaser of the estate retained in his own hands. It has been shown that the average mortality at present at Ostend is one in thirty-six; which is the same thing as to assert that a new-born child at Ostend has an expectation of thirty-five and a half years of life. The Roman allowance from birth, _à primâ ætate_, was thirty years. If we suppose the Romans deducted from the real value of life five and a half years for the interest of money, it would bring the Roman allowance and the duration of life at Ostend to the same. The like deduction at the age of seventeen would likewise bring the probability of life in both cases to the same. It is not likely that the Romans, without any record of the individual facts, and acting only on a general principle of utility, the best they could find, would make any variation for the intermediate years of childhood and youth: consequently the presumption is, that the duration of life at Rome, 1300 years ago, was very much the same as it is throughout Europe at the present day. This estimate, however, for the reasons already assigned, includes only the resident citizens of Rome, the male sex, and the higher classes. What the mortality was at Rome among the lower class, including the slaves—what it was in the Roman provinces, and in the less civilized countries of that age—we have no means of forming even a conjecture. What it was in Europe during the succeeding ages of barbarism we do not know.