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the rate of 22.8 per 1,000. But this ought not to
lull us into the belief that we have reached the
highest point of sanitary rule; for these numbers
have but a doubtful signification. In some parts
of the City the death-rate mounts to 27 per 1,000,
and I should ill perform my duty if I masked this
fact, or left it without a comment.
And now let us see what has been the influence
of age on the City mortality, and what the proportion
of deaths at each of the several epochs of life.
You will notice in the second table, that of the
2,904 deaths for the year, 1,163 occurred among
infants of less than five years of age, 193 between
the ages of five and twenty, 391 between twenty
and forty, 522 between forty and sixty, 549 between
sixty and eighty, and only 86 after the fifth epoch
of life. Of 1,000 persons, therefore, who died last
year in the City, 400 did not reach the fifth year of
their age, 466 died before reaching the twentieth
year, 601 before the third epoch, 781 before the
fourth, 970 before the fifth, and only 30 were left
to struggle on to the sixth epoch.
As in the vision of Mirza, therefore, we can see
the bridge of human life, with its hundred arches,
that spans the City. We can also see multitudes
of people struggling to pass over it, and, as we look
more attentively, we may see the passengers