8o TiMEHRI. 



ends meet probably much increased and perhaps resorts 

 to such measures as infant insurance, through which his 

 proper affe6lions for his offspring may become strained. 

 Individuals who are in daily intercourse with the poorer 

 classes of the people see hardships increasing instead of 

 growing less, and though the population is not decimated 

 by infeflious diseases to the same extent as formerly, 

 still has not this keen struggle its own injurious effe6l 

 upon the people? and in the increase both in size and 

 number of Hospitals, Work-houses, Lunatic Asylums 

 and Jails there is anything but evidence to be found of 

 the diminution of the effects of such competition. One 

 would like to see the want for these institutions move in 

 an inverse rate to the increase of the people. I have 

 frequently heard it said that the present population, 

 taken as a whole, is not proportionately a more elfeftive 

 and robust one than that which was made up of its ances- 

 tors of say 50 years ago, and I believe it may be put for- 

 ward as something more than a hypothesis, that in a 

 given community at the present day there are more 

 " ailing" than was the case in a similar community for- 

 merly. Is it true that the hale, robust and sound aged 

 persons are no more numerous now in proportion than 

 the same were, say 50 years ago ? And again is it true 

 that the ancemic and fragile folks^ in fa6l the constitu- 

 tionally and nervously weak, have increased in propor- 

 tion ? I make no assertion that it is so, such may be all 

 wrong — I hope it is — but undoubtedly there are some cir- 

 cumstances which support the contention of its being a 

 fa6l. It would take statistics compiled on the physical 

 condition of the living at two remote periods to prove 

 this one way or the other, and such proof is impossible to 



