Census of the United States. 881 
MORTALITY. 
The statistics of mortality represent the number of deaths 
occurring within the year that the census was taken as 
320,194; the ratio being as 1 to 72°6 of the living popu- 
lation, or as 10 to each 726.* 
* This rate of mortality is much below the European average. In 
England, for instance, the proportion of deaths to population is about 
1 in 42 in towns, and 1 in 60 in the agricultural districts, affording a mean 
of about 1 in 52. 
Australasia seems to occupy, generally, a middle position in this respect 
between Europe and the United States. In New South Wales the ratio 
of deaths to population in 1852 was 1 in 60; in Victoria, 1 in 70; in Tas- 
mania 1 in 50, but J in 70 in 1849, (the increased mortality in 1852 being 
attributable to the commencement of the fatal epidemic of scarlet fever) ; 
and in Western Australia 1 in 285. 
These results are so discordant as to require some explanation.—New 
South Wales, a long-established colony, with a centralised organisation by 
which the Government could, except in remote pastoral districts, ascertain 
with absolute certainty every casualty affecting human life, shows a 
mortality of about 1in 60. ‘This would appear to be about the average of 
the Australian Colonies free from the operation of disturbing causes. Tas- 
mania, for instance, in 1849, at a time when convicts were introduced, 
gave 1 in 70; in 1852, when transportation had ceased, but the unusually 
severe epidemic alluded to prevailed through the island, and there was no 
palance of free immigrants over those leaving the colony, the mortality 
was 1in 50; the average of the two extremes would correspond with the 
mortality in New South Wales, or 1 in 60. 
The more limited area within which population exists in Tasmania, and 
the more advanced and concentrated character of her institutions, render 
it comparatively easy for the Government to obtain returns with great 
accuracy. For these reasons the returns for this island may be more de- 
pended upon than those of the adjoining colonies. Victoria in 1852 is in 
much the same position with respect to the influx of population that 
- Tasmania was a few years ago. It has been stated that in 1849 the rate 
of mortality was 1 in 70; and we find that in Victoria under similar 
circumstances in 1852 the mortality was also lin 70. Doubtless in the 
interior of Victoria and New South Wales, and the other colonies of the 
main-land of Australia, deaths frequently occur which remain unrecorded : 
and if this be the case on the continent of New Holland, it must obtain 
much more in the backwoods of America, where population is similarly 
seattered, and still further detached from the machinery necessary to collect 
