336 THE TREND OF THE RACE 



town is ruinous. The large town is a far shining light house 

 whose lamp consumes a mighty deal of fuel." In cities humanity 

 is exposed to unnatural conditions of life. Frequently inhabitants 

 are crowded together, with an inadequate supply of fresh air, 

 exposed to increased risks of contagion and inducted into habits 

 of vice that deteriorate their posterity as well as themselves. The 

 effect of these untoward agencies is reflected in the rate of mor- 

 tality which is generally higher in urban than in rural commu- 

 nities. We cannot, however, in all cases accept the mortality rate 

 of cities as a reliable index of their healthfulness. As a measure of 

 the actual influence of the city upon the duration of life it may be 

 too high or too low. The presence of hospitals and asylums, 

 orphanages and homes for the aged occasion a rise in the general 

 death rate. On the other hand, barracks and institutions of 

 learning, which contain many people at an age when the death 

 rate is low, tend to produce an unduly favorable impression of the 

 general salubrity of the city in which they occur. The same 

 influence is exerted by the various industries which create a 

 demand for the employment of men and women in the prime of 

 life. On the whole, the death rate in cities tends to be abnormally 

 low, because there are, as a rule, relatively more people of adoles- 

 cent or middle age than in the country. The presence of many 

 children of an early age naturally raises the general death rate, 

 and where the birth rate has declined, as it has done to so great an 

 extent in many cities, the general death rate becomes corre- 

 spondingly reduced. A city may for various reasons have a very 

 low death rate and nevertheless be a very unwholesome place 

 in which to live. 



Notwithstanding the causes which tend to reduce the rates 

 of urban mortality as they are commonly expressed, the death 

 rates of cities generally have been, and in some countries still are, 

 greater than that of adjacent rural communities. This is shown 

 for the United States in the following table giving the death rates 

 of urban and rural communities in the registration area: 



