380 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. V., No. 118. 



than that of the combined experience table of 

 the English companies. Above the age of 

 thirty, the American mortality is decidedly less 

 than the English, while at the earlier ages it is 

 greater. The American table shows a maxi- 

 mum of advantage over the English experience 

 about the age of fifty. The deaths at this age 

 are about one in seventy-three by the American 

 table, while the English table gives one death 

 in sixty at this age. The experience before us 

 greatly increases this discrepancy on the two 

 sides of the Atlantic. At the age of fifty, the 

 Connecticut company has only one death in 

 ninety-three, against the numbers just stated for 

 the English and American tables respectively. 

 Perhaps the case is seen in the strongest light 

 by remarking that the actual mortality at the 

 ages from thirteen to twenty has been apprecia- 

 bly the same as at the ages from forty-six to 

 fifty. Whether this extraordinary mortality 

 is due to some special cause, is not clearl\ r 

 stated. If the lives which have been accepted 

 by the company are representative ones of 

 their class, it would seem that young Ameri- 

 cans are subject to some extraordinary liabil- 

 ity to death. 



The insured are divided into forty-nine 

 classes of occupations. It will perhaps sad- 

 den the reader to learn that travelling-agents, 

 among whom book-agents are undoubted^ 

 classed, seem to have the greatest viability of 

 all. Taking them and lumber-men together, 

 the death-rate is less than half that given by 

 the tables. Dentists come third, and meet 

 with the same fortunes as professors and 

 teachers : for both classes the mortality is six- 

 tenths that of the tables. How little mere 

 occupation has to do with viability, is shown 

 by the fact, that, while bankers and capital- 

 ists suffer one-fourth less, brokers, speculators, 

 and operators suffer twelve per cent more 

 than the tabular mortality. Officers of the 

 nay}', and of ocean and sailing vessels, have 

 suffered the greatest comparative mortality of 

 all, having died twice as fast as the general 

 average of the insured. This is no doubt 

 to be attributed to the civil war, which oc- 

 curred during the time covered by the experi- 

 ence. Taking out this case as exceptional, 

 the greatest mortality of all would be found 

 amongst liquor refiners and dealers, bar-keep- 

 ers, landlords, etc. This is quite in accord 

 with general experience. 



It is much to be desired that the mortality 

 statistics of the census should be placed on a 

 better basis. If the census office were to be 

 made a permanent one, we might expect such 

 a result to be attainable. S. Newcomb. 



AMERICAN FLASH LANGUAGE IN 1798. 



The cant or flash language, or thieves' jar- 

 gon, was scarcely known, even by name, in the 

 United States, until attention was drawn to it 

 some forty } T ears ago by the publication of Ains- 

 worth's 'Rook wood' and 'Jack Sheppard,' 

 followed by Dickens's 'Oliver Twist.' Even 

 then it was regarded as a purely English prod- 

 uct ; and it was not until 1859 that Mr. G. W. 

 Matsell, chief of police in New-York City, pub- 

 lished a little work upon this dialect, showing 

 that it had been to some extent transplanted 

 to this side of the Atlantic. I am not aware 

 that any mention has ever been made of the 

 fact that there exists a full glossary of this 

 thieves' jargon, as spoken nearly a century 

 ago at the Castle in Boston harbor (now Fort 

 Independence), which was used down to the 

 year 1798 as a state penitentiary . The reason 

 for this neglect lies, no doubt, in the fact that 

 the book in which this glossary is given — ' The 

 life and adventures of Henry Tufts ' (Dover, 

 N.H., 1807) — is an exceedingly rare one, 

 having been, it is said, suppressed by the au- 

 thor's sons. It is not to be found in any pub- 

 lic library in Cambridge or Boston ; and the only 

 copy I have ever seen was picked up by myself 

 at an old book-store, many years since, and was 

 presented to the Worcester, Mass., city library. 

 In a paper to be published elsewhere, I have 

 given some account of this singular book ; but 

 this glossary of terms deserves a separate 

 treatment as a contribution toward the history 

 of the American speech. There is nothing 

 more curious than the vitality of a class of 

 words never emploj'ed in good society, and 

 never admitted into an} r dictionary. While we 

 all claim theoretically that vocabularies, and 

 even academies, are necessary for the preserva- 

 tion of a language, we yet find in practice that 

 these base-born brats, these children of thieves 

 and outcasts, have a vitality of their own. 

 The profane or indecent phrases which boys 

 hear at school, and which they repeat with 

 bated breath if at all — these same words were 

 heard at school by their grandfathers, and 

 have led a haixfy and disreputable existence 

 ever since ; yet they remain unchanged, and 

 time has not, as Sir Charles Pomander said 

 of his broken statues, ' impaired their indeli- 

 cac}'.' Tufts's list does not, for a wonder, 

 stray into the domain of impropriety, though 

 the rest of his book does ; but he gives many 

 words that can be traced through other similar 

 dictionaries, many that occur in his glossary 

 alone, and others that are now familiar, and are 

 commonly supposed to be recent. I have re- 



