Dr. Rabagliati, of Bradford, has lately shown that the pro-
portion of deaths from water on the brain in children above school age has increased considerably between 1870 and 1880, and he attributes it to the operation of the Education Act. In 1870, deaths from this cause in children under five years of age bore to the deaths from this cause in elder children the propor- tion of 5 to 1; but now they bear only the proportion of about 4 to 1,—showing, apparently, that a larger number of elder children die from water on the brain than before the Education Act. He has also shown that the number of deaths from inflammation of the brain has increased from 219 to 321 per million. Do these facts, however, show that children die who would not have died but for the Education Act, or only that children die in one way, who before the Education Act would probably have died in another way ? Should not the statis- tician show that the proportion of children growing up to maturity has itself diminished, in order to establish the case of the over-pressure agitators ?
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