IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) // M/ /., m- %o fA 1.0 Li !.25 ■- IIIIIM t 1^ 1.4 6' IIM 1.6 ri uu Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 mr CSHM/iCMH Microfiche s CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut Canadian de microreproductions hi^ttoriquas Technical and Bibliographic Notea/Notas techniques at bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may aHer any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked betow. L'institut a microfilm^ le meilleur axemplaire qu'il lui a stA possible de se procurer. 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Maps, platas. charts, ate, may ba filmad at diffarant raduction ratios. Thosa too larga to ba antiraly inciudad in ana axposura ara filmad baginning in tha uppar iaft hand comar, laft to right and top to bottom, as many framas aa raquirad. Tha following diagrams illustrata tha mathod: Laa cartaa, planchas, tablaaux, ate, peuvant dtrs filmte A daa taux da rMuctinn diffdrants. Lorsqua la document ast trop grand pour dtre raproduit mn un saul clichA, il est film^ ^ partir da I'angia supAriaur gauche, de gauche d droite, et da haut an bas, en prenant la nombre d'images nAcessaira. Laa diagrammes suivants illustrant la mAthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 ON THE RELATIVE VALUE OF e[um:a.n lute* IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF CANADA. BY PHILIP P. CARPENTER, B.A. {Extracted from the Canadian Naturalist.) fHfltttreal : PRINTBD BY JOHN LOVKLL, AT HIS STEAM PRINTINO B8TABLISHMBNT, ST. NICHOLAS STREET. 1859. r \ -f- t ON THE EELATIVE VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE. -h "While tlic naturalists and geologists of the Royal Mount throw light on each other's studies in reference to extinct Palliobianchi- ates or recent Gasteropods, it may not be out of the province of this Journal to record facts in reference to livinsr men and women ) and those who would have been livinsf had not the teaching's of modern science been disregarded, or considered as of secondary importance to the pursuit of money or of power. The exact connection between those sanitary conditions over which man has control, and the actual number of deaths in any town or district, is no longer a matter of hypothesis. The very accurate system of registrati<.n of births and deaths which has been carried out in England for more than 20 years, and of which classified returns are regularly published by the Registrar-general has enabled chemists, physiologists, statisticians and other sanitary reformers to compare their theories with recorded fHcts,and tocheclv off their reasonings, by the average of a long series of years. The following instance will shew the precision with which sanitary re- formers can now predicate the rate of mortality according to the external circumstances of drainage, ventilation, &c. While Mr. P^ H. Holland was registrar of the southern portion of Manchester (called Chorlton-upon-Medlock) he went through each district, tab" ulatii)geachstreet,court,&c., in three columns, judging by his senses and knowledge what their rate of mortnlity was likely to be. In each street he aljomade a threefold division of the houses, according to their character. Here therefore were nine divisions, to each of which he assigned a supposed proportion of deaths to population. He then directed his clerk to tabulate the actual deaths in each of these divisions, taking the average of five years. On comparing the theory and the facts together, in no case did they vary more; hnn one-half per cent. The following aro tlio results, omitting the fractions: — Best streets Middling streets , Worst streets Hcst ~ ~ Hcs Doaths perl.OflO inhabitantH in j^j^^J^ 19 18 •liddliiiK Wurat llOUSI'S. h0U8l<8. 22 26 28 27 28 40 Thus the inhabitants of the best hou in dimatal conditions not very diRsimiUr to ttiose of Canada. Thfi general inortsility of the principal part of Ulioilc Inland Ik also added, from the Government Report. > T Census of ISfil. All Canada Upper Canada Do. less 5 large cities. Toronto HamiltoQ Kingston ttawa London Lower Canada Do. less 2 large cities . Montreal Quebec Total I Total I Doatlis nrr population, deaths.' 1,000 inhabit's. PuruouluKuot loiu' I lIl'llMlH. 1,842,265 952,004 880,737 30,775 14,112 11,585 7,7GO 7,035 890,261 790,494 57,715 42,052 J 19,449 7,775 6,754 474 172 185 90 IOC 11,674 8,632 1,978 1,064 lOJ 8 n 15 li 16 Hi 14 13 11 34 25 IJiiilcr .•5 yiaw. 43 42 41 52 47 56 48 49 43 39 43 69 iToin .\,v- uiotiudiN- eave. 2 I 2( 2t 1 ) 2) 21 20 28 15 37 1841 English Uurdl Dis Forty large towns Liverpool parish. 1840-2 Bristol city ' " Rural Dis... « " U.Clifton.. ' " L.Clifton.. ' Massachusetts 1853-1857 15 cities in do. ) above 10,000 > inhabitants . ) Whole State, less :i 15 cities Boston " Charlstown " Fall River " Springfield " Rhode Island State. 1853 3,440,501 3,759,186 G6,575 96,999 19 26 35 26 19 16 34 54 42 33 25 51 1,132,369 20,90,' 417,838 9,31( 714,53111,595 4,195 505 382 265 1,126 160,490 21,700 12,680 13,788 118,722 18 39 ar- 22 46 • • 16 34 • « 26 47 ■ « 23 48 30 54 12 47 • • 9 • • 28 Confining our attention at present to the third column, that of comparative mortalily, we cannot but be surprised at the two fol- lowing results: (1) the extreme healthiness of the country di.'*trictK generally, and of the cities in Upper Canada; and (2) the extreme mort;ility of Montreal, notwithstanding the beauty of its strectt* and tlie substantial comfort of its mansions. It is natural to snp. pose that some peculiar disaster that year befel the city, from which the res^t of tlie Province was exe-Tipt. Let \is endeavour, therefore, to see how far the same ratio holds in other years. In the Prothonotary's office are tabulated, year by year, the number of deaths and the inereasi of population by birth ; Ottawa, Vaudreuil, Two Mountains, Terrebonne, Leinster, Berthicr, Ridu'licu, St. TTyaointlio, Ronvillc, Vorcliorcs, Cliambly, Iliinting- (lon, Bcauliarnois, Missisquoi, Stanstoail, and Shofford, containing H populauon of 428,588 souls accoraiiig to tlio census of 1851; partly rural, partly galheml into towns; subject to the same fliinatal relations as Montreal, and inhabited by a people having the same religion and habits of life. Tlio balance of wealth and the means of comfort arc obviously in favour of the city. If Mon- treal has more than its share of sick persons, through the attrac- tion of the liospitals, the same is true of Quebec and Toronto. Moreover, it is proverbial how long persons live in these establiah- i^ients, owing to the kind and watchful nursing of the Sisters of Charity. And whatever increased mortality may be due to this cause, is probably more than countei balanced by the number of consumptive patients who are sent out of the city into the country to die. The following are the returns, commencing with 1851, when first we have an accurate census of population. It will be remembered that 1852 was the year of the great fire, and 1854 of the cholera. Y«lirs. 1851 1852 1S53 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 Total Jo. loss 1851 Toli.1 pupiilHlion, MONTUKAL CITY. Escesn t)f birthi over dettha Total Deulln doilhs |>cr lUOO 57715 580;53 59088 fi()il9 5S)9SU fil014 (52276 ti37U + 918 -t-ll)5;J -i- 7ti;5 — 4«;} 4-1028 +1202 -i-14;t8 +1495 1078 1992 2278 3739 2231 22St 23(i7 2299 34 34 38 C,i 37 37 38 36 COUNTRY DISTRICli. Total populalion. 428588 4t(M)ll 1 431104 ! 4ii2S84 470700 479286 488850 498297 ExcfH* of hirib* over tleatba +1142* -- 11093 --112S0 -- 8310 -- 8586 -- 9.")64 -- 9147 (+ 9147)* T'iIkI daitlia. 5853 (■,326 6525 8731 7809 7184 7380 (7521) Doallia per lOOO 14 14 14 19 17 16 15 15 d.«mlf +''^'^-^ 4S3173 (or 10 per 1000 423021 j (or 19 per 1000 19168 15129 40 30 3719220 {^.at'Jer 1000 | '^''^^^ 3250830 71840 :.or22 per 1000 1.8058 15 16 • Th(^ rogistration districts having been altered in 1858, these numbers are inserted hypotlieticall:- to complete the average. It is not pretended that these tables arc precisely correct. Ab- solute accuracy is of course unattainable in a country where there is no compulsory system of registration ; the yearly returns of births and deaths being simply the records kept of religious ceremonies. In the country districtts of Upper Canada, doubtless a large num- ber of infants are born and corp'^es interred without any other re- cord than in the family bible, if indeed in that. Still, cacdi of the Upper Canadian cities, where deaths at least are recorded, shows so healthy a condition that the mortality of the country is pro- bably not much greater than that recorded. But in Lower Cana- da, where the religious habits of the Catholic population almost ^^^^^ 7 compel resort to tho font and to the cemetery, wo may rc^^ard an average of 1 years as a fair criterion of its sanitniy condition. On examining t\u> tables for the country districts, wo find an extremely rapid rate of increase, being no less than 22 per thou- sand each year. This speaks well, not oidy for the morality and industry of the inhabitants, but also for tho resources of tho country. The mortalitj, however, appears slightly on the increase, and presents an avonige consiilerably above the mortality of the whole province in 1851. This averagu is not essoutialiy dialurbed by the ci)olera year. It is probable tl»at the extra mortality of the rural districts of Lower above Upper Canada, is due not fo much to the severity of the climate (which in Ottawa city closely resembles that of a large part of tho Montreal Distriet) as to the close stoving and intensely dry and heated rooms; a habit which would doubtless carry otf a much larger number of victims, wore it not for the extreme purity of the surrounding atmosphere. The point, however of most vital importance, for it affects the lives of thousands, and the health of myriads, is the excessive mor- tality of Montreal. Not only did it present in 1851 a ratio of death greater than that of any city in Canada or New England ; amounting to 8 per 1,000 over Boston, with its immense and crowded Irish population; 9 per 1,000 over Quebec, with itsbloak climate, nairow streets and rock-bound courts; 20 per 1,000 over the five cities of the West, and the same over the country district, six times as populous, in the midst of which it raises its beautiful domes and spires; not only so, but its mortalilii has been increasing; and on the average of 1 years, even leaving out the terrible 1854. it presents a catalogue of deaths greater than that of Liverpool (the most unhealthy and over-crowded of English cities), in its most unhealthy epoch, before the days of sanitary reform ; when 39,460 of its inhabitants lived in 7,892 cellars ; when 55,534 fought against death in 1,982 courts, containing 10,092 houses, built bark to back, one third of tliem closed at hoih ends, and at best provided with only a surface drainage, which might be called a fever-bed condensed.* ^^^^^ • At that time the cellars were generally from 10 to 13 feet square, sometimes less than 6 feet high; often with only bare earth for a floor; frequently with no window, and the ceiling on a level with the street. Generally there was no other drainage than a ccss-pool under a board, which had to be ladled out ; sometimes a cess-pool of putrid matter was allowed to incubate its fevers under a sleeping bed. Sometimes a back But it irt not fair to leavo out tlio cholora year fioin the avcrjififc. The Rnino poisonous gasca wliich yearly raise the morlalily from 14 to .34 or ovoi) 38 per 1,000, ociaHumally (•(Hicciitrato thoir cn- fcrf,n«s fortiie dovelopinoiit t»f a t-liolera, a Hliip-fev.-r or aomo other poslihnco. Sucli visitations are often looked upon as "Bpecial providences;" but they are as natural an'e ! Montreal was not the only city which was scourged by cholera. Vaudreuil and Laehine, in its immediate vicinity, Rhared the plai^uo; but with how dilVerent results the following table will •how. Aiiut>>ii>* ol* Uic Club. 458 1770 $1013 $4012 The second is extracted from the "Journal de Societe do la Morale Chretienne" for Aug. 1847. The testimony is veiy accu- rately ascertained, and gives a comparison of strong country labourers where liquor was distributeJ„with sickhj inhabitants of towns where the diink money was expended on better food. Both parties were employed on government work. In the country districts of llulstein, MecKiembourg, Oldenlourg, and Ilanovre, where drink was given, out of 20,952 laliourers employed, 472 became sick, or one out of every 44. Whereas out of 7107 labourers from the towns of Brunswick, Cldenbourg, and the Hanseboroughs, to whom drinh was not supplied, there were only 70 sick, or one out of every 90. But the d-^aths in towiis do not so much result directly from drinkino', as is shown by comparing Montreal with Toronto and Ottawa, where drinking was ju^t as much followed, and yet the mortality continued low. Tiie usual etieet of liquor is to weaken the Constitution of its votaries, and thus render them an easy prey to the various forms of town disease, which abstainers are fre- quently able to avoid or at least to throw oil'. The early exposure of infants by Catholic parents, for baptismal purposes, has also been assi<>ned as a cause for the extreme mor- tality of Montreal. But this cause will affect, to an equal or even greater extent, the adjacent or rural dislriets; whereas, out of every 100 deaths in Moutreui, 4:3 are of children un.lcr 5 years of % . -/•- • J^ 11 age; in the country only 37 : while in the Protestant cities of Upper C.inada, flic mortality is much greater, vary in, o- from 47 to 56. In England the fourth column of the original table furnishes a very exa<'> guide to the amount of preveniible mortality. In Canada there appear anomalies which would perhaps be explained by an aveia,ae of many years. Such is the enormous iiifaiitile mortality of Quebec, amounting to 69 out of every 100 in 1851. The same may be said with respect to the last column, which represents-- the percentage of deaths arising from " xymotic" or air-poison diseases, which, though generated even in country phu;es, are peculiarly destructive in towns, where they are not instantly diluted with fresh air. In England, out of every million persons living in the country, 3,422 die evevy year of these disenses; while of the same number living in towi;s, 6013, or nearli/ double the number, die from the same causes. The returns for Canada, however, will have to be corrected by an average of years; fo»- we find healthy Hamilton losing half of its total number from these diFeases, while Montreal loses only 1.3, and Kingston, with less than half its mortality, only 8. The town smells, therefore, have otht^r ways of killing-olT those who inhale them thun by infectious complaints, an i this they do, in general, by the gradual weakening of ihe constitution, through which the system is unable to bear up agains.t whatever disease happens to att:ick the suflerer. It appears, therefore, by comparing the averages of Montreal and its adjacent districts, even leaving out the fever year, that there are 21 deaths in every thousand persons which might yearly be prevented ; that is, on the present population of (say) 65,000 inhabitants, the people of Montreal kill-off thirteen hundred an I sixty-Jive of their own flesh and blood every year, who would not die did they only pav as much attention t) health in the city as they .10 in the country ; to say nothing of uindreds of lives more which country and towns' people alike sacritice on the altar of self-indulgence and " Zutssez/aiVe." But this is not all. From the returns of the Manchester Dis- pensaries, it appears that to every case of death there are 28 cases of sickness. These, on the average of the Preston Si( k Clubs, last 5 weeks each. Ti'erefore the people of Monti eal voluntarily tax their health to the extent of 38.220 (;ascs of sickness evfiry year, whirh is equal to a loss of 191,100 weeks, or 2,674 years; that amount requiring to betaken twice over, once for the sufter- mo' invalid and again for the anxious nutse. W^ 12 Nor is this the whole of the evil. There is a larjre amount of general enfeeblement of health, which does not rlevelope into actual disease. Tiiis brings misery on the daily life, urges to the use of poisonous stirnnlaiits, often leads to recklessness of conduct, destroys the desire and even the power of amendment, and works corruption throughout the whole fabric of society. To the work of palliating or curing disca'^es, 25 physicians or other medical men honourably devote their lives, and are thank- fully supported by the inhabitants, along with 1 5 vendors of drugs ; in all, an apparatus of 40 persons devotinir their energies to res- toration, besides large numbers of Tlosnital attendants, Sisters of Charity, and other nurses employed in tending the sick. But to this day the city of Montreal does not employ a single officer of health to detect the causes of preventable disease, nor does she make it a requirement in the men she elects to her Municipal Council, that they should enforce those sanitary regulations which the law empowTs them to carry out. The limits and scope of this paper do not allow me to point out the special causes of this extreme mortality, nor the means required for their removal. It !nay be sufficient to place on record an ac- count of a court in the Petite Rue St. Antoine, which T visited in April last in company with a Domestic ^lissionary. It was by no means so bad as many parts of the Griffintown suburbs. It is to be hoped that the time will soon come when this description will be as greit an antiquarian curiosity as the "plague-stone" in the Wa7Tin(jt>n Museum, in a hollow of which the money was passed through vinegar to prevent transmission of inaction. We lef: the street through a covered passage, treading on bricks and pieces of wood through a mass of wet and decomposing manure and filth. Reaching thus the small back-yard, we found it to con- sist apparently of a widely-extended midden, consisting of disgusting slutch and every kind of refuse, from a few inches to some feet in thickness. On two sides, this yard was separated from two simi- lar ones by partition fences ; on the other two it was enclosed by dwellings. The inner house, or rather hovel, was divided into two; the two little rooms upstairs, inhabited by a French family at a rent of $4 a month; those below by two families, paying $3 60 for .the liberty of being poisoned. The miserable rooms not only got no air but what was charged with the stenches of the jard, but just outside were several privies, too disgustingly filthy to be ueed, but breeding " iiast" to soak through the wooden walls and ii ii i I i 13 floor of the inner room. This was filled by a family, where of course there was sickness ; with closed door and window, so that no air entered but what was saturated with fever-stenches. For the upper rooms of the coltage opposite, $8 a month were paid. On descending the staiis to reach the street, we had to cro s over fluid matter, stepping on bricks. The lower story, for which $6 are generally paid, was now necessarily empty, being flooded, I will not say with water, but with liquid manure, the disgusting emanations from which ascend through the stair case and between the boards, into the upper story. It was by wading on bricks through this mass of pollution that thii ten:iiit had to obtain her supply of water; this being the one only health-spot in the whole, where the pipe, rising through the fcctit) drainage of the court, discharges the pure water of the Ottawa for the pallid occupants. The upper tenants had been there for 15 months, and assured me that the yard had never been cleaned during the whole time. And yet the authorities, who confiscate unwholesome meat when off'ered in the siiamMes, allow the use of these unwholesome dens to be freely sold to those whose ignorance or poverty keeps them from remonstrance; and men are found willing to draw $21.50 a month, as payment for the privilege of inhaling poison, in places where no right-thinking man would keep his horse, scarcely his pig; and where he would not live himself (or rather die) for any amount of money. During the long months of winter, all injurious emanations are happily frozen up, like the fabled tunes blown into Munchausen's horn. But when the spring thaw comes, the wliole mass of cor- ruptior,, which has been accumulating on the surface and among the snow, is set free ; not only sinking into the unpaved back yards, and there laying by a deep store of pollution to rise up at the bidding of the summer sun, in the form of fever or cholera; but running into and around the dwellings, soaking into the floors, and sponged up by the timber walls, where the reeking colour, premonitory of disease, is hidden behind some tawdry paper; and the heedless victim of ignorance, generally also of intemperance, hires the poisoned cofiin in which his wife and little ones ore con- strained to dwell. In the more healthy parts of the city, the winter manure is dis- lodged by the melting snow and precipitated on the solid matter. As the streets rapidly dry, fine dust is formed in immense masses ; and while tho poor below are wading on bricks through the liquid u stench bowls * the gentry are inhaling similar rollntions in the form of impalpable and perceptible dnst. It is evident that both streets and yards should be cleared as soon as ever the suhstance is soft enough tc be removed ; tliat the liquid manure instead o^ running to waste in the river, should be employed to fertilize the land ; that all back yards not used for cultivation, should bo paved with brick or stone; that houses should be drained with some other material than wooden troughs ; that the plan of fixing frame houses on wooden legs over swamps should be expressly prevented ; and that a completc^system of sewerage should be provided for the poorer, far more than even for the wealthier portions of the com- munity. The mere fact of sewering and cleansing 20 streets in Manches- ter, inhabited by 3,500 persons, reduced the inortHlity from 31 to 25'per 1,000 ; that is, prevented 21 deaths and 588 cnses of sick- ness in 7 months. In Windmill Court, London, there were 41 cases of sickness in 7 months. The landlord paved and sewered it, and supplied it with water ; and in the same space of time after- wards, there were only 2 cases. He did it at his own expense, and "made a good thing of it."— When the Manchester Council swept their streets by machine every day, they found that the roads scarcely ever needed repair. lu Aberdeen and Perth, the expense of the similar daily cleansing was more than covered by the sale of the manure. What is poison to man is food to the plant. One pound of urine contains all the elements necessary for one pound of wheat. The fffical matter of two adults is sufficient manure to raise an acre of corn or pease ; or that of one man will produce an acre of turnips, if the green matter is returned to the soil. The value of manure in Flanders is $9-25 per man. Land near Edinburgh, which used to let for only |15 per acre, now fetches from 1100 to $200 per annum, simply from being irrigated with town refuse. And in the town of Rugby, the system of drainage is so complete that whatever is deposited in the dwelling in the morning, by noon is spread over the fields in a minute state of division, before de- composition has time to develope its poisonous stench. • The myriads of flies of which the inhabitants complain, are the ne- cessary result of tlie putrid refuse. In the present state of the city, they act as nature's scavangers, and should be reckoned among the greatest blessings. ^^ ^. ' 16 As the cost of sanitary measures is generally the greatest ob- stacle to their adoption, it may l.e well to inquire whether iheir nct ailoined with princely mansions, her jewels of colleges and cathedrals, her boast of commerce and of wealth, be clothed with the white robe of Health, pure as her winter's snows, and crowned with the diadem of Life, bright as her summer's sun, so that her future may fulfil the prediction of the Prophel, — " My people shall not labour in vain, " Nor bring forth children for early death. *' No longer shall there be an infant of days, " Nor an old man th t hath not fulfilled his time : "For he that dietl. a\ a hundred years shall die a youth, *' And the sinnei dying at a hundred years shall be held accursed- "They shall not build, and another inhabit; "They shall not plant, and another eat : ^ " For as the days of a tree shall be the days of my people ; " Yea, long shall they enjoy the works of their hands." Is. Ixv. 20-23 Boston, May 13, 1859. fityt/xyi^^^^ ^yU<-A-€. ^