Value of Human Life in Canada, 



m 



ARTICLE XIIL— On the Relative Value of Human Life in Diffe- 

 rent Parts of Canada. By Phtlip P. Carpenter, B.A. 

 {For the Canadian Naturalist.') 



"While the naturalists and geologists of the Royal Mount throw 

 light on each other's studies in reference to extinct Palliobianchi- 

 ates or recent Gasteropods, it may not be out of the province of 

 this Journal to record facts in reference to living men and women ; 

 and those who would have been living had not the teachings of 

 modern science been disregarded, or considered as of secondary 

 importance to the pursuit of money or of power. 



The exact connection between those sanitary conditions over 

 which man has control, and the actual number of deaths in any 

 town or district, is no longer a matter of hypothesis. The very 

 accurate system of registration of births and deaths which has 

 been carried out in England for more than 20 years, and of which 

 classified returns are regularly published by the Registrar-general, 

 has enabled chemists, physiologists, statisticians and other sanitary 

 reformers to compare their theories with recorded facts, and to check 

 off their reasonings, by the average of a long series of years. The 

 following instance will shew the precision with which sanitary re- 

 formers can now predicate the rate of mortality according to the 

 external circumstances of drainage, ventilation, &c. While Mr. P. 

 H. Holland was registrar of the southern portion of Manchester 

 (called Choiiton-upon-Medlock) he went through each district, tab- 

 ulating each street, court, &c„ in threecolumns, judging by his senses 

 and knowledge what their rate of mortnlity was likely to be. In 

 each street he also made a threefold division of the houses, according 

 to their character. Here therefore were nine divisions, to each of 

 which he assigned a supposed proportion of deaths to population. 

 He then directed his clerk to tabulate the actual deaths in each 

 of these divisions, taking the average of five years. On comparing 

 the theory and the facts together, in no case did they vary more 

 than one-half per cent. The following are the results, omitting 

 the fractions : — 



Thus the inhabitants of the best houses, in the best streets, live 



