On the Graduation of Mortality Tables

Extract

Mr. Sprague, in his report on Mr. Finlaison's Tables of Mortality among Government Life Annuitants, states as the result of his study of the subject of graduation that the most satisfactory system of adjustment is the graphic method; and he supports this opinion by referring to the irregularities which he regards as a consequence of the use of Mr. Woolhouse's method of adjustment. I do not doubt that Mr. Sprague would conceive and correctly draw a curve to satisfy all the conditions of good graduation; but in my own hands the graphic method would be a failure, and there may be others who doubt if they have skill to draw the curve and patience to amend it by the successive trials which Mr. Sprague himself finds necessary.