Juliet signal. [volume] (Juliet [i.e. Joliet], Ill.) 1844-1???, 1861-04-16
Proportion between Births and
Deaths

That God has not abandoned to blind
chance the lives of men, and the preserya-
ton of the human race. but that he watches
over them with paternal Care, is evident.
from the exact proportion in which, in all
ages and countries, men enter and quit the
stage OF existence so that the earth is
neither destitute nor too full of inhabitants.
The number of births generally exceeds
that of deaths: for it has been calculated.
that If ten persons die annually. twelve or
thirteen are born. Thus the human race is
continually multiplying. If this was not
to be the case, and the proportion of deaths
exceeded that of births, country would be
depOpulated in few centuries, particularly
as the population of country NAV be af-
fected by various accidents. The principal
obstacles to the increase of the human spe.
eies are war, pestilence and famine cell
baey, and crowded cities where at least as
many people die as are born.
Baptismal registers prove that more male
than females are born: the proportion being
nearly twenty one 70 twenty. But war,
death, and various accidents 20 which men
are exposed, preserve an equality between
the sexes; IN towns females are even more
numerous, bat in the country, the males
preponderate.
The number of children relatively to that
OF families, is also regulated with the great.
est wisdom. In sixty six families, it is com
puted that only ten children are annually
baptised. Out of fifty or fifty-four persons
in populous country, there is only one
married each year, and each marriage TAX
ing ore with another, produces four chill
dren; but IN large towns only thirty-fiye
children are reckOned to ten marriages.
Men capable Of bearing arms, generally
constitute the fourth part of the inhabitants
of country.
By comparing the bills of mortality of
different countries, it is found, that in those
years which are not remarkable for any de
structiye disorder, such as an epidemic,
there dies in villages, out of forty people.
one; IN small towns, one out of thirty two;
IN middling size towns, one in twenty
eight; in very populous towns or cities.
one In twenty-iour; and in a whole proy-
ince, one out of thirty.six. Out of a thou
sand people tweDty-eight annually die
CT n hundred children that yearly die. three
are always still born, but scarcely one in
two hundred dies in the birth. OF the
hundred and fifty women who dies only one
dies in child bed and out Of four hundred
deaths, only one happens in labor.
The greatest mortality amongst children
is within the first year out of thousand
infants, two hundred and ninety three die
before they have attained years growth :;
but between the first and second year Of
their age, only eight out of a thousand die :;
| and In the thirteenth and fifteenth wears.
the number of deaths is so small as not to
exceed two in a thousand. This, then. is
the period of life in which there is least
danger. 1t has been observed that more
women than men have attained to the age
OF from seventy to hinety years; but that
more men than women pass their nine
teenth year, and reached a hundred. At
! least three thousand millions Of people NAV
live at the same time upon the earth but
| there is scarcely one-third Of that number,
or, at the most, one thousand and eighty
millions; of these, six hundred and ffty
millions are in Asia one hundred and
fifty millions in Africa one hundred and
fifty millions in America; and one hundred
and thirty millions in Europe.
The most natural inference to be drawn
from oil this, is, that God has the most
tender solicitude for the life of man, and
that he regards it as being very precious +:
for If the Divine Wisdom had not operated
how could the proportion between births
and deaths be so equally maintained, and
so admirable preserved at all times and in
all places.