Public Parks. 8 1 



use of an organ, increases its power and confirms its health ; but 

 excessive exercise which requires an undue shai^e of vital energy, 

 leads to an unhealthy condition. 



" Much of the mental activity that characterizes our people," 

 says a distinguished writer, ''arises from the abundant opportunities 

 that are offered for the pursuit of wealth, and the consequent variety 

 and novelty of the enterprises undertaken for this pui-pose. All are 

 hoping and striving to make or greatly to advance their fortunes, by 

 some happy stroke of skill, some nicely balanced combination of 

 chances, or some daring speculation. The result, all can see and 

 admire, but few know anything of the wear and tear of mind by 

 which it was achieved. Indeed, our ways of doing business, our 

 notions of property, our ideas of happiness, all indicate, as strongly 

 as traits of character can, that a large portion of our fellow citizens 

 habitually live and move and have their being under an extraor- 

 dinary pressure of excitement that brooks neither failure or delay. 

 If unsuccessful in one attempt, our inexhaustible resources furnish 

 the means and opportunities of trying another, while misfortune and 

 disappointment stimulate rather than depress the mental energies."* 



With how much truth and force can these remarks be applied 

 to the inhabitants of our city, and their force is but too apparent in 

 the rapid consumption of the mental powers, and the tendency to 

 diseases of this character, f 



This is not alone the result of diseases of the mind, but of others, 

 particularly consumption, as will be seen by an examination of a 

 table found elsewhere, where the deaths of males during the specu- 

 lative excitement of 1S56, and the consequent financial revulsion of 

 1S57 ^^^ 1S58, greatly exceed those of females, and, also, in the first 

 years of the war of the Rebellion : and, no doubt, such was also the 

 result of the depressing effect of the cholera on the mind, in 

 increasing the mortality by this disease, during the last half of 1866 

 and the first half of 1867. 



* Ray, Mental Hygiene. 



t Owing to the different spheres in which the two sexes move, the effects of an undue exercise of 

 the mental powers are more apparent in the male sex, as is evidenced by the foUowmg statement : 

 Since July ist, 1851, 179 males, and 77 females, have died of apoplexy : 363 males, and 269 lemales, o) 

 dropsy of the brain ; 1,613 males, and 1,308 females, of convulsions (nothmg unusual m this difference 

 of the sexes, as more males are born, and there is a greater mortality among males in infancy) ; epilepsy, 

 29 males, and 16 females; palsv, 93 males, and 58 females. In apoplexy, epilepsy, and palsy, a better 

 idea may be formed of the effect of the great mental activity that characterizes our people, although 

 there is no doubt tliat we have an excess of males in this city. My confidence in the statistics, I must 

 confess, is not what it should be, as, during the period in which they were reported, no less than 3.766 

 deaths are ascribed to unknown causes. This will, however, be better appreciated by the statistics of 

 those who have died of old age during the same period. Of these there were, males, 359, and females, 

 398. The mortality should be about die same, owing to the fact that we have always had a larger male 

 population than female, giving due credit for the greater female longevity. 



