The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1855-12-23

squeezed between Anglo-Saxons on the north
and Anglo-Saxons on the south, and it is
not in the nature of things that they should
resist successfully. When that time comes,
it will not be forgotten here that the pecu-
liar character of the present tenants of the
Mexican soil is such that they might, under the
direction of Anglo-Saxons be used to develope
the natural resources of the country as well if
not better than any other race. Properly
guided, and serving asuperior race, they would
answer as we'll as negroes it would doubtless
recommend the annexation of Mexico to the
mind of the North to know. that it need not
necessarily become slave territory.
Vital Statistics OF the United. States and Great
Observation-Disclosures Teatimonyin be-
halr of our Free Installations.
There are matters in the report of the CEN
sus of far greater interest than is to be found
in the naked statement of the age and occupa-
ton of those who are yearly numbered with
the dead. There is life in peace and death in
war-there is life in production, in abundant
supplies of food, and there is death in famine
and starvation-there is life in the common
suAering-there is life in domestic tranquility,
in individual competence, in education and en-
lightenment, in sobriety and industry and
there is death in dependence, in ignorance, in
contentious and strife; and the latter are en-
tailed upon every community just in proper
'tion as it has neglected the means of education,
political, moral and religious.
Without intending to be egotistical, we cam
not help referring to this subject in this way
to explain what otherwise must be regarded as
most remarkable fact in connection with the
mortality statistics of this and other countries
The deaths in the United States are about one
and half per cent; those of Great Britain
about two and quarter. Here is a difference
so wide as at once to suggest the possibility of
inaccnracy in the returns, and especially so as
our fatherland has wholly passed through, in
the settlement of the country, precisely what
we are in the midst Of and what is exposing
our people to the most fatal diseases known to
our climate. The whole valley of the Missis-
sippi, and the vast plains of Illinois and other
Western States have been regarded as the
grave Of the pioneer or the hospital of the
laborer. Their rich soils, exposed to the sun,
have set to fermentation and decomposed
vast amount of vegetable matter upon the sur
face, engendering poisonous atmosphere, and
producing disease and DEATH Whole districts
of our widely extended agricultural fields have
been made fairly to tremble by the shakes
Of their inhabitants, sometimes sinking entire
in a eli Ia int tIn
depths of despair.
Our seaboard and cities, reaching into every
climate and exposed to disease by intercourse
with all the world our great rivers and our
countless railroads, by which European emil
grafton, often Of the lowest and lthiest classes,
is transferred through the heart Of our chief
populations /; our proverbial carelessness and
indifference in regard to guarantees, and in
deed to human life our endless boiler explo-
sons and railway slaughters; our exposure up
on distant frontiers, without adequate medical
advice, and often beyond the reach Of sympa-
tby-all these things conspire to lead one to
believe that in the United States the per cent
age OF deaths must be greater than in any other
country on the globe. That such is not the
fact, and that the contrary to remarkable
extent is the case, is enough to put rejecting
men upon inquiry. Human life ought to be
The chief object of care and preservation. 1t
is great gift when united with the human
mind, indicating at once the design of the
giver, and imposing high obligations upon
those who possess it,
Is it not apparent---with all Difference to
The infinite reform projects of the day-the
violent temperance and abolition movements,
and all kindred spasmodic devices to give
prominence to individuals--that the edu-
cation of the people, the cultivation of the
mind, the enlightenment of the understanding
is the greatest preserver of human lifeg May
We not look to it's fruits as a conquest nobler
and more humane than to all other sources Of
He who has had an introverted eye
can tell us how want, present and prospective,
has gnawed away at the vital powers, how it
has emaciated the system, how il may have
produced disease and DEATH The Stats
ticians proclaim the alarming fact tina.
the whole Independent wealth of EGG
land, Scotland and Wales is in less
than fifty thousand families, or two hun
bred and fifty thousand people. The relation
Of landlord and tenant, in such distribution
of property, is not only obvious, but i. tells Ct
a vast abject dependence. 1t is the great curse
of the British empire-a curse taking its rise in
early conquests, surviving the introduction of
the Magma Charta, perpetuated by the laws of
sustaining the proudest aristo-
cracy on the globe, entailing more ignorance
and causing greater sacrifice of human life than
war, pestilence and famine combined. From
the centre of this aristocracy the American
people are daily receiving lessons of humanity,
and rebukes that we permit the institution of
slavery TO exist in the States Her farmers
the tenants who till the soil-by the showing
of her own writer's, receive and use less than
half the food consumed by her suspected and
thieves, and one-third less than is