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between the ages of 20 and 40; 545, or nearly
18 per cent., were in the fulness of manhood,
between the ages of 40 and 60; and 671, or almost
a fourth part of the whole number, were at 60 and
upwards. These proportions differ a good deal from
the averages of England; for while, on the one hand,
there is an apparently less mortality in the City at
all ages below 30 than in the rest of the country, on
the other, there is a terrible increase in the deathrate
of persons who have passed the meridian of life.
This last fact is shown by every mode of estimating
the mortality of the citizens; and even in the case of
infants, where a City life appears to be so genial, if
the death-rate is calculated for the number of children
living, instead of for the total number of the
dead, it will be seen that the exception in favor of
the City is only apparent. In all England, for
example, only about one-seventh of the children die
before they are a year old, whereas in the City a
sixth of them perish. Again, of every 1,000 children
living under 5 years of age, only 66 die in the
country generally, but there are 86 in the City. Of
adults, between the ages of 50 and 60, the English
mortality is 21 per 1,000, and the City mortality 32.
It is, in fact, the very young, and those in the
maturity of manhood, and the decline of life, who
are swept away so fast. These, therefore, swell
the proportions of the death-rate, and make the
duration of a City life so short.