The Sun.
London, England, 1852-05-04 00:00:00

THE MARRIAGES, BIRTHS, AND DEITHS
IN ENGLAND.
The quarterly return of marriages, births, and deaths
was issued on Saturday. The general results of the
return are satisfactory; the marriages exceed the average
number, the births are above, the deaths are below the
average of the kingdom.
90,936 persons were married in the last quarter of the
year ending December 31st, 1851. In England the
greatest proportion of marriages is always celebrated in
the months of September, October, November, after
harvest; and the numbers in the last season not only ex-
ceeded the marriages in the previous quarters of 1851,
but those in the corresponding quarters of previous years.
Allowing for increase of population, the proportion of
marriages was slightly less than in the autumns of 1845
and 1850, but greater than in any other autumn since
1842. One in 58 of the persons living was married in
1851; or there was one marriage to every 117 persons
living. The marriages increased chiefly in London,
Cornwall. Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Warwick-
shire, Rutlandehire, Nottinghamshire, Lancashire,
and North Wales. They declined in the southern,
south midland, and eastern counties ; in Wiltshire and
Devonshire, Cumberland, Westmorland, and Mon-
mouthshire. The increase was most striking in Rei-
gate Croydon, Maidstone, East Ashford, Faversham,
Brighton, Falmouth, Taunton, Bristol. Gloucester,
Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Derby, Preston, Hull,
Durham. The rate of marriage was high, but sta-
tionary or slightly declining, in Liverpool, Manchester,
Leeds, and Sheffield.
The births of 161,776 children, born alive, were re-
gistered in the months of January, February, and
March, 1852. The number greatly exceeds the average
of the season, which is generally the most prolific of the
year. So many births were never registered before in
the same time. London, the West Midland counties,
Yorkshire, and the northern counties exhibit the great-
est excess over their ordinary average.
As the births registered were 161,776, the deaths
106,682 an addition is made to the population in
three months of 55,094 persons. This is the natu-
ral increase. During the same period an army of
57,874 emigrants sailed from the ports of the
United Kingdom at which there aro Government
emigration officers; 51,999 of them sailed from three
English ports-8,438 from London, 1,798 from Ply-
mouth, and 41,763, comprising an iedefinite number of
the Irish people, from Liverpool. 1,399 emigrants sailed
from Glasgow and Greenock; 4,476 from Irish ports.
The average price of wheat during the three months
was 40s. 10d., or 4s. higher than it was in the last three
months of 1851, when more wheat was sold. The quanti-
ties of wheat and wheat flour entered for home con-
sumption at the chief ports of Great Britain rapidly di-
minished in the three last periods from 91,040 to 47,986
and 27,540 quarters weekly. The price of potatoes at
the waterside market, Southwark, was 70s. a ton, and
ranged from 3s. to 4s. a hundred weight. The average
price of mutton by the carcase ranged from *I. to 51c1.;
and has scarcely varied for nine months. The price of
the inferior beef rose from 3d. to 30. The average
price of Consols was 974.
The mortality of England is highest in the winter
quarter. Notwithstanding the peculiarities of the
weather, the mortality in the past winter has been
considerably below the average of the season.
The annual rate of mortality in the winter
quarter of 1852 was 2.364 per cent., which is less by
0.111 than the mean annual rate of mortality in the
ten previous winters. To every 22 deaths in previous
winters, after allowing for increase of population, there
were 21 deaths in the past winter, during which, as
Mr. Glaisher has shown in his valuable account of the
meteorology, the temperature was 3 deg. above the
average.
The health of the districts comprising chiefly small
towns and country parishes was considerably above the
average standard; the towns exhibited less improvement,
and lost a fourth part more of the population by death
than the country districts.
In Lcndon 14,592 deaths were registered in the three
months of January, February, and March; 14,481 in the
thirteen weeks ending March 27. Small-pox, scarlatina,
and hooping-coueh prevailed to a considerable extent.
lefl mines, bronchitis, and pneumonia were fatal to 40,
1,422, and 908 persons; whereas the deaths in the pre-
vious winter of 1851 from the same diseases were 205,
1,612, and 1,244. Consumption, on the other hand, was
more fatal in the two last than it was in the two previ-
ous winters. Scurvy and purpura were only fatal to
10 persons. 527 persons died in the thirteen weeks of
typhus. 62 women died of metria or puerperal fever, and
62 of other diseases incidental to child-bearing. 120
cases of erysipelas are recorded. Cancer is an example
of great regularity in the mortality some diseases cause;
in the five last winters the deaths from cancer were 222,
231, 213, 236, and 231. Deaths from diseases of the
nervous system remained very uniformly the same.
Diseases of the heart are returned in increasing
numbers; to that cause 425 deaths were referred
in 1848, and 603 in 1852. The increase is probably
due to the advancement and diffusion of medical know-
ledge; for many of these deaths would informer years have
been referred to dropsy. Nephria, or Bright's disease,
has increased from the same cause. One of the most sin-
gular facts in the return is the increase of deaths by car-
buncle; which from, an average of about 2 rose to 17 in
the quarter, 19 deaths were directly ascribed to intem-
perance, 29 to delirium tremens, 12 to privation, 64 to
the want of breast milk, 4 to cold, 23 to poison, 88 to
burns and scalds, 7C to hanging and suffocation, 72 to
drowning, 161 to fractures and contusions, 35 to wounds,
and 11 to other violence.

THE CAUSES OF THE DEFEAT AT
WATERLOO.

The battle of Waterloo was lost not by the army,
which was never more indefatigable, more devoted, and
more brave, but by the commission of four faults—the
tardiness of Ney on the evening of the 16th in occupying
Qaatre-Bras ; the indecision of Grouchy in not marching
towards the cannon of the battle, and neglecting Wavree ;
the too great distance left by Napoleon between his
army and his right wing commanded by Grouchy; finally,
and above all, the loss of seven hours of daylight by Na-
poleon on the morning cf the 18th, in front of Welling-
ton: fatal hours, which gave time to the Prussians to ar-
rive on the field of battle, and to the French army a se-
cond enemy upon its flanks, before it had vanquished
the first. Of these four errors two must be a.eribed to
Napoleon's generals, and two to himself, none to the
troops. Neither his genius nor his resolution are recog-
nized in separating himself from one- Laird of his army,
by an immense and unknown space on his right, without
even verbal communication with this wing; nor when he
hesitated till 11 o'clock in the forenoon before he ad-
vanced to storm Mont Saint Jeau, and to deprive Wellin-
gton of the hope of being joined by the Prussians, already
in sight on the horizon, but still three hours maroh from
the field of battle. He left Ney, half a victor upon the
reverse of Mont Saint Jean, to wait for three hours the
mass of the army and the Imperial Guard, instead of
profiting by the breach opened by the Marshal in the
English army, to hurl upon it his centre and his reserve,
and to sweep Wellington, scarcely resisting, from the
field, before Blucher should be in a position to prevent
the defeat of the English. Finally, his decisive impulse
amidst the fire of battle could not be recognized in his ten
hours' immobility on the plateau of Rossomme, and in
his passive inertness behind the hillock at Mont Saint
Jean, whilst his army was totally sacrificing itself by
mounting to the breach opened by Ney, and waiting
for nothing but the presence and example of its Emperor
to rise above itself and superior to destiny. One of
these faults alone was sufficient to ruin an ordinary
army, but all combined destroyed that of France.
Let us add, in order to be just, that Wellington and
his army equalled by their intrepidity the first generals
and the best soldiers in France. The English general
possessed the true genius adapted for desperate
struggles, the determination not to be conquered. His
troops possessed the real genius of defence, passive obe-
dience unto death. The Scotch regiments covered,
without yielding an inch, the spot on which they were
ordered to die.—Lamartine's History of the Restoration of
Monarchy in France.

GALVANIC CHAINS.—We find in a Belgian medical
journal the following curious case, related by M. Henrotay,
a military surgeon. It runs as follows :—Geerairts, '3B years
of age, keeper of ordnance stores at the camp of Beverloo, in
Belgium, was in the habit of wearing, on account of old
rheumatic pains, a galvanic chain, which was fastened to
his chest. Being, the last summer, close to a spot which
was struck by lightning, he was suddenly seized with a fit of
dyspncea, which lasted fully a quarter of an hour. As he was
no worse for that attack, be soon forgot the circumstance,
when, on the Ist of May, 1851, whilst reading the paper in
his room, the window of which was open, he was aroused by
a violent clap of thunder. Immediately upon this, the man
had- vertigo, he staggered about, was obliged to hold by. the
furniture, and was all at once completely deprived of sight.
He had at the time the galvanic chain around his neck.
When seen by the surgeon, there was a great anxiety in the
patient's countenance, the eyes were open and almost mo-
tionless, the pupils dilated and hardly acting, &c. The man
complained of severe headache and giddiness, the pulse was
slow, feeble, and compressible, and a bellows murmur was
heard in the cardiac region. The patient was very thirsty,
and there were nausea, anorexia, and slight pain on
pressure
in the epigastrium. Leeches were applied behind the ears,
sinapisms to the legs, and low diet enforced. As there was
no improvement two days after the accident, a large blister
was put on the nape of the neck, some amelioration took
place, and sight was quite restored on the sixth day.—Lancet.
How TO COOS AN EGG.—An egg should not be
boiled ; it should only be scalded—n(l9o, coddled. Immerse
your egg in, or, which is better, pour upon your egg boiling
water. For time; proportion your time to the size and num-
ber of your eggs, and the collateral accidents. If you cook
your eggs upon your breakfast-table more time will be re-
quired. But if you station your apparatus on a good whole-
some hob, where there is a fire, and so the radiation of heat
is less positive, less time will suffice. The latter way is mine,
winter and summer, and the differences of the surrounding
circumstances equalize, or nearly so, the time. I keep one
egg under water 9 minutes two, 91; three, 10 ; and four
nearly 11 minutes. The yolk first owns the power of the
caloric, and will be even firmly set, while the white will be
milky, or at most tremulously gelatinous. The flavour,
superior to anything which a plover ever deposited, will be
that which the egg of the gallinaceous domestic was intended
to have; the substance, that which is delectable to the
palate, and facile of digestion. There is perfect absence of
that gutty percha quality, in the white especially, at once the
result and the source of dyspepsy. I believe that eggs would
be much more patronised and much more wholesome, if
boiling were discarded.— Cottage Gardener.
ALARMING OCCURRENCE AT THE ROYAL Acx-
DEMY.—About mid-day on Saturday a very alarming acci-
dent, which might have been attended with the most diast.
rolls consequences, occurred in the apartments occupied by
the Royal Academy in the National Gallery. It appears
that among the preparations for the banquet that evening
was the arrangement of a large number of gas jets near the
roof of the saloon where the dinner took place. Beneath
these jets a large sheet of strained camas was extended in
order to shut out the glare from the pictures on the walls.
The man in charge of the
- gas was in the act of testing its
adieu when a small quantity of ignited spirit of wine fell
upon the canvas, and in an instant the whole was in a blaze.
happily, the fragile frame and the canvas were soon con-
sumed, and, beyond the mischief occasioned by the destruc-
tion of the table-cloths and part of the dinner
orgiphemlia
where the debrif fell, 129 damage happened.