134 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Dec. 



men having taken up arms in defence of our homes. But I trust 

 that now peace is again restored to us, and hope that war, with 

 all its appalling features, may merge into the calmer pursuits of 

 science ; and that the Montreal Natural History Society may long 

 continue to diffuse and spread knowledge ; for 



" There's beauty all around our paths, if but our watchful eyes 

 Can trace it 'midst familiar things, and through their lowly guise." 



ON THE VITAL STATISTICS OF MONTREAL. 



By Philip P. Carpenter, B.A., Ph. D., Hon. Sec. of the Montreal 



Sanitary Association. 



In the Canadian Naturalist for 1859, pp. 173-186, was publish- 

 ed the first attempt to eliminate and explain the sanitary statistics 

 of Canada. The facts and figures therein set forth were carefully 

 scrutinized in this and other cities. As was to be expected, the 

 conclusions arrived-at were frequently called in question ; but the 

 writer was charged with inaccuracies which belonged to the data, 

 and not to the working-out of the materials. The figures were not 

 set forth as accurate ; but only as the nearest approach to accuracy 

 ichich ivas then attainable. 



The census of 1861 has now furnished elements for comparison 

 with similar results in the previous decade ; and the yearly tabu- 

 lation of burials and baptisms in the city of Montreal and in the 

 adjacent counties has added to the cumulative evidence of the 

 peculiar unhealthiness of the city. It is proposed, in the present 

 paper, to present the results of these two sources of information ; 

 and to compare them with a third source, viz. the weekly returns 

 of interments at the city cemeteries, which were not accessible to 

 the writer in 1859. 



A. Census of 1861. 



It must be premised that the deaths are twice tabulated in the 

 census returns, viz. under ages, and under diseases. On analyz- 

 ing these in order to ascertain the proportions of deaths from 

 xymotic diseases, of deaths under 5 years, and of deaths above 70 

 years, to the total deaths, it was found that in Quebec City, then 

 the capital of Canada, there was no less a discrepancy than 296, 

 in the total number of deaths recorded, between these two tabula- 



