Excerpt from Sixty-Fourth Report of Births, Marriages and Deaths in Massachusetts, Returns of Libels for Divorce, and Returns of Deaths Investigated by the Medical Examiners: For the Year 1905 It is perhaps worth while to quote from last year's report a few lines in regard to this change from the antiquated system in vogue for fifty years or more. This change to the so-called Bertillon system, or modification thereof, facilitates the comparison of the statistics of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with those of the national government, and those of foreign countries, as well as those of most of the other States of the Union having registration. This change may temporarily render comparison between the statistics of this State, tabulated in the various years since the beginning of registration, a matter of difficulty, or, at least, inconvenience; but a beginning had to be made at some time, and the year 1901 seemed a favorable time, and the results apparently justify the change. Moreover, any one who has carefully studied the figures in Table 2 of the Observations must have been impressed with the great variations in the statements of the number of the population for indi vidual years, as given in the various reports. According to these statements there were years when the population apparently suffered a decrease, - a condition manifestly absurd. In view of this fact, the whole of Table 2 was revised for the report for 1901, a labor of no mean magnitude; and both the estimates of the number of the population and the percentages based thereon were in many instances changed, with the belief that now the table is far more accurate than it ever was until the report for 1901. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.