The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Annual Monitor for 1851, by Anonymous

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Annual Monitor for 1851
or, Obituary of the members of the Society of Friends in Great
Britain and Ireland, for the year 1850

Author: Anonymous

Release Date: June 4, 2006 [eBook #18502]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANNUAL MONITOR FOR 1851***

Transcribed from the 1850 C. Gilpin, R. Y. Clarke, and Co. edition by
David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

NEW SERIES, No 9.

THE ANNUAL MONITOR FOR 1851.

OR
OBITUARY
OF THE
MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
In Great Britain and Ireland,
FOR THE YEAR 1850.

LONDON:
SOLD BY C. GILPIN, R. Y. CLARKE, AND CO., DARTON AND CO.,
AND E. MARSH: GEORGE HOPE, YORK.

1850.

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

We have again to present to our friends the Report of the Annual
Mortality in the Society of Friends, in Great Britain and Ireland. It
has frequently been observed, how nearly the number of deaths in each
year has approximated, but we have this year to notice a considerable
diminution in the annual return. We are not disposed, however, to
attribute the diminished numbers, chiefly to any special cause connected
with health, but consider it rather as one of those fluctuations which
are ever found to arise in a series of years, in the mortality of a small
community. The number of the dying, however, may be expected to bear, as
respects the average, a pretty uniform relation to the number of the
living. And if the fact be, as all our late inquiries lead us to believe
it is, that we are, though slowly, a diminishing body, we must expect
that our average number of deaths will also be found gradually to
diminish.

We have often anxiously pondered over the question,--Why the Society of
Friends should be a diminishing body? And we propose to give in this
place a few of the thoughts which have been suggested to us in the course
of our consideration.

In the first place, let us notice the natural causes which tend to the
decrease of our Society. We have formerly shown that the mortality among
our members is less