Value of Human Life in Canada. 177 



sand each year. This speak? well, not only for the morality and 

 industry of the inhabitants, but also for the resources of the 

 country. The mortality, however, appears slightly on the increase, 

 and presents an average considerably above the mortality of the 

 whole province in 1851. This average is not essentially disturbed 

 by the cholera year. It is probable that the extra mortality of 

 the rural districts of Lower above Upper Canada, is due not so 

 much to the severity of the climate (which in Ottawa city closely 

 resembles that of a large part of the Montreal District) as to the 

 close stoving and intensely dry and heated rooms ; a habit which 

 would doubtless carry off a much larger number of victims, were 

 it not for the extreme purity of the surrounding atmosphere. 



The point, however of most vital importance, for it affects the 

 lives of thousands, and the health of myriads, is the excessive mor- 

 tality of Montreal. Not only did it present in 1851 a ratio of 

 death greater than that of any city in Canada or New England ; 

 amounting to 8 per 1,000 over Boston, with its immense and 

 crowded Irish population; 9 per 1,000 over Quebec, with its bleak 

 climate, narrow streets and rock-bound courts; 20 per 1,000 over 

 the five cities of the West, and the same over the country district, 

 six times as populous, in the midst of which it raises its beautiful 

 domes and spires; not only so, but its mortality has been increasing; 

 and on the average of 7 years, even leaving out the terrible 1854, 

 it presents a catalogue of deaths greater than that of Liverpool (the 

 most unhealthy and over-crowded of English cities), in its most 

 unhealthy epoch, before the days of sanitary reform ; when 39,460 

 of its inhabitants lived in 7,892 cellars ; when 55,534 fought against 

 death in 1,982 courts, containing 10,092 houses, built back to 

 back, one third of them closed at boih ends, and at best provided 

 with only a surface drainage, which might be called a fuvei-bed 

 condensed.* 



* At that time the cellars were generally from 10 to 13 feet square, 

 sometimes less than 6 feet high ; often with only bare earth for a floor ; 

 frequently with no window, and the ceiling on a level with the street. 

 Generally there was no other drainage than a cess-pool under a board, 

 which had to be ladled out ; sometimes a cess-pool of putrid matter was 

 allowed to incubate its fevers under a sleeping bed. Sometimes a back 

 cellar was used as a sleeping room, with no light or air but what could 

 enter through the front. Each house above contained two or more fa- 

 milies, among which one woman complained that they were u rather 

 crowded, since the people in the next corner took lodgers." The popu- 

 lation was huddled together to an extent nearly three times the maximum 



Canadian Nat. 2 Vol. VI. No. 3. 



