418 [Assembly 



liar to them or not, are aggravated, and altered in character, not by 

 the food they eat, so much as by the air they breathe, and their 

 other depraved physical circumstances of life. The sin of intemper- 

 ance in eating cannot be laid at the doors of the cellars, and the 

 entrances of the alleys and courts, while that of intemperance in 

 "drinking, though a dreadful addition to the horrors of his already too 

 degraded physical and moral condition, is, with the ignorant and 

 poverty-siricken troglodyte, a venial fault, in comparison with the 

 pampered luxuriousness and equally injurious and intemperate, though 

 more refined indulgencies of his wealthier and more responsible 

 neighbor. 



I conclude this part of my subject by calling attention to a few 

 facts, illustrating the relative duration of life, of different classes of 

 population; premising that, in consequence of the imperfection of 

 our means in obtaining the statistics of vitality and mortality of our 

 population, it will be necessary to go abroad for some of the facts 

 which bear on this important enquiry. 



It is ascertained that in civilized communities, one-fourth part of 

 all the human race who are born, die before attaining their first 

 year; more than one-third before arriving at five years of age, and 

 before the age of twenty, one-half the human race, it is supposed, 

 cease to exist. On -referring to the last two annual reports of the 

 mortality of this city, I observe that of the persons who have died, 

 about the same proportion as is above stated, of all who are born, 

 that is, about one-fourth died in the first year, about one-third before 

 five years, but more than one-half before twenty years of age. 



No facts could speak in louder tones of the injurious operations of 

 the circumstances of civilized life. That one-half should die before 

 arriving fairly upon the broad platform of strength, usefulness, and 

 hope in the world, is the significant finger pointing with unerring 

 certainty to the sins of ignorance, and abuse of the bountiful and 

 unfailing means of life and comfort lavished upon us by Providence, 

 which lie at our doors. Can this ignorance of the laws of health be 

 excused, or can this abuse of Heaven's bounties be defended? There 

 can be no justification for either in the eye of the Creator and Giver 

 of all things. 



The savages who live in the caves of the earth, because tliey have 

 neither the knowledge nor means to build houses, are pardonable; 

 yet their natural instincts teach them the uses and necessity of fresh 



