176 



Value of Human Life in Canada, 



climatal relations as Montreal, and inhabited by a people having 

 the same religion and habits of life. The balance of wealth and 

 the means of comfort are obviously in favour of the city. If Mon- 

 treal has more than its share of sick persons, through the attrac- 

 tion of the hospitals, the same is true of Quebec and Toronto. 

 Moreover, it is proverbial how long persons live in these establish- 

 ments, owing to the kind and watchful nursing of the Sisters of 

 Charity. And whatever increased mortality may be due to this 

 cause, is probably more than counte: balanced by the number of 

 consumptive patients who are sent out of the city into the country 

 to die. The following are the returns, commencing with ]851, 

 when first we have an accurate census of population. It will be 

 remembered that 1852 was the year of the great fire, and 1854 

 of the cholera. 



* The registration districts having been altered in 1858, these numbers are inserted 

 hypothetically to complete the average. 



It is not pretended that these tables are precisely correct. Ab- 

 solute accuracy is of course unattainable in a country where there is 

 no compulsory system of registtation ; the yearly returns of births 

 and deaths being simply the records kept of religious ceremonies. 

 In the country districts of Upper Canada, doubtless a large num- 

 ber of infants are born and corpses interred without any other re- 

 cord than in the family b ble, if indeed in that. Still, each of the 

 Upper Canadian cities, where deaths at least are recorded, shows 

 so healthy a condition that the mortality of the country U pro- 

 bably not much greater than that recorded. But in Lower Cana- 

 da, where the religious habits of the Catholic population almost 

 compel resort to the font and to the cemetery, we may regard an 

 average of 7 years as a fair criterion of its . c anitaiy condition. 



On examining the tables for the country districts, we find an 

 extremely rapid rate of increase, being no less than 22 per thou- 



