Worcester daily spy., 1859-03-15
MORTALITY In MASSACHUSETTS.

The learned statist who had the charge OF
the lists of mortality in the Registration Re
port, just published, has presented series of
intricate yet curious and useful tables, show
ing the average future duration and intensity
of life in different localities, and the compara-
tive degree of energy with which those vital
powers which resist destruction sustain the
living at different ages. Of le,0OO cmldren
born in Massachusetts, 8449 are living at the
age of one year; 6S73 at the age of ten years;
6437 at the age of twenty years; 44O9 at the
age of fifty years The average length of the
lives of those who survive the age of twenty
years will be 1886. About one in six of the
children born alive in Massachusetts die before
they are one year old. About one in 5000
passes the grand cEmacteric of an hundred
years.
Comparing the American with the English
branch of the Anglo Saxon race, and also with
the Teutonic and the Scandinavian races, it
appears that the power to resist death is great
er in Massachusetts, than in the other coun-
tries, between the ages of twelve and fifteen,
when, in all the countries, the vital energy
eliminates and declines. We are weaker than
the other races from the ages of l6 to 81, when
those of us who survive begin to grow stronger
in comparison, and continue so to extreme old
age More Yankee than English children die
before they are 8 years old; more English
than Yankees between and 10; more Yam
KEGS than English, again, during the whole
period of business and reproductive life, when
the scale turns in our favor once more, giving
us the advantage in the decline of life The
figures with their stern and unanswerabe
logic, prove what we have always had vague
and loose impression of-that, in the most val
liable period of life, we are the most careless
and reckless people in the civilized world. We
enter into all our business pursuits with rush.
Exposed early to the rough-and-tumble of busy
life, we fill our marts of activity with little old
men, before their bodies are ripe OF their minds
mature; and we send more men and women to
their graves without having their accounts
made up, than any other people to whose
records we have access.
Among the causes of death, in 1857, con-
sumption and the epidemics take the first
place. Scarlet and typhus fever desolated
more family circles in that year than in all the
five years preceding. Worcester county suf
fered, relatively, very much more than any
other. Upwards of eight hundred victims were
swept away by these fatal diseases, most of
them children. That mysterious scourge-
consumpton-visitede every rank, and sought
its victims among persons Of every profession
and every age. Thirteen persons daily, it is
estimated, fell before this direful destroyer of
human life. Upwards of two thousand deaths
were caused by scaratina. Accidents and vi
olent causes not stated produced six hundred
and seventy deaths. There were twenty-seven
by homicide and ninety-seven by suicide.
Blanks fill the spaces after the names of those
barbarous agencies of death-execution and
battle.
The relations of personal occupation to NOR
tality opens a wide and interesting field of
comparison Take for basis the figures for
the fourteen years ending December 81, 1857.
Farmers, of course, reach the ripest age, fall
ing off at 64.38. No other class come near
them except sheriffs and constables, who, for
some reason, not wholly inscrutable, are per-
mitted to survive year or two longer. In
specific employments, vitality is strongest, and
nearly equal among clock-makers, ship car
penters and caulkers, coopers, distillers, mil
lers, pump and rope-makers, bank officers, gen
tlemen, judges and justices, lawyers, clergymen
and nurses, all of whom arrive at or exceed
the average age offifty-fve. Among the class
es who repenish the bills of mortality at forty
are skaters, brewers, furnace-men, sail-makers,
comedians, tailors, druggists, editors, seam
stresses, and the like. Bakers, though fur
nishing the staff of life for the world, only live
on the average, to the age of forty-fve, and
cooks scarcely as long. Pail-makers kick the
bucket at the early age of twenty-seven.
Cutters are cut off at the age of thirty-four.
Workmen in powder-mills reach the age of
thirty-seven engineers and fremen, thirty
five; news-men, thirty -four; soldiers, thirty
eight clearinghouse keepers average forty
six years clerks, thirty three; railroad con-
ductors, thirty six teachers, thirty y-nine and
students, twenty three Among females whose
average is forty-hve years, nurses live the
longest, and teachers and operatives the short
est lives. Three persons died during the year
over one hundred years of age, one in Worces-
ter, one in New Bedford, and one in Peru,
Berkshire county.