Year: 1859




chiefly on the authority of travellers who
80 described French life as they saw it,
and who have not always seen it from the
,,ost moral and domestic point Of view large
.,nrbers have come to believe France one of
,be most immoral countries in Europe, unless
ft,lv should be excepted Paris is probably
about as loose a capital as any need wish to
coo Yet vice and virtue are not mixed up
even in Paris, as DIR. Sanger has shown them
to he in every street in New York nor does
vice walk the streets as unblushingly Bat
al great cities are great sores in some points
of view, as jefferson has truly said; and
French cities are, more Systematically de
nraved probably than many others. But he
who sees the corruption of French city life,
and Judges thereby of the whole French ma.
ton, greatly misjudges the bulk of the peo.
ple. And nothing seems to he better estab
iished than that small farmers and the coun-
trv people generally, who form the great
masses, are very much like that class of peo
pe all the world through and about equal
to the average in point of morality, marrying
and giving in marriage like the rest Of the
world.


Population does not increase quite so fast
in France as in England, nor in England, of
course as in the United States But France
furnishes at least the most authentic and ac-
curate statistics, exhibiting the effects of eve
ry different mode of life upon the national
prosperity, In this respect it is far before
every other country on the globe.


Out of thirty six millions Of inhabitants in
France, fifteen and half millions are mar
Jied, or in a state of widowhood. This Ger
tainly does not look as if marriage was there
becoming an obsolete institution Eight and
half millions are bachelors or spinsters,
leaving only twelve millions for children
so, at least, the figures show. Thus the pro
portion Of the married would seem much
larger than might have been expected, but
the number of their children singularly
small.


DIR. Purre thinks, however, that the type
of the French race is improving from the
diminution of bad types, such as idiots and
lunatics, who do not marry. The general
opinion has been that, in the point of stature
at least Frenchmen were rather deteriora-
ting In France, marriage is much more the
result of prudential calculations and consider
atons than with us, or even with the En-
gIsh All is done by negotiation. The heart
has little to do " ith the matter; fancy moth
ing; and prudence everything. The mar
riage is not valid unless the man is eighteen
aud the woman fifteen. Even then, unless
the head of the family give his or her con.
sent, the ceremony can be set aside. In all
this, France is in one extreme, and we quite
as excessively in the other. Prudence and
principles have too little to do with our mar.
riages, and momentary fancy too much. -
Marriage is more favorable to long life than
celibacy, as these statistics prove, unless it be
very early marriages The mo ,tality of males
marrying before twenty is almost five times
as great, it is said, as of those remaining sin
gle. This however, must be an error From
twenty upwards, marriage seems to about
oouble the chances of seeing sixty. To about
thirty the chance of life to unmarried females,
Is rather better than that of married But
from this up the scale tnrns decidedly the
other way and the chance of seeing sixty is
very far better for the married than the un-
married female. For those marrying under
twenty, the chances of mortality is rather
greater than of those who wait till above that
time, when the bodily system is matured.-
Even to twenty five, nine married women die
to eight unmarried


AT all ages, widows are more Mortal than
wives, and widowers than married men.-
Grief has, of course much to do with this
The absence of that mutual care which each
exercises for the comfort Of the other is also
concerned. So that, great as are the cares of
married life, great as are often the expenses
and priyatious, these are all as nothing to the
evils of having no one but self to live for. In
fact, to live without a purpose and without an
aim, beyond the mere personal good, seems
the most fatal of all things to human life
Without some object beyond themselves, men
and women soon die. The married life calls
into exercise faith and hope more than sin
gle life. There is enterprise and lisk, and
reliance uron the future, with fear some
times for daily bread, and hope in children
and III the good time coming. all connected
with married life and all of which have Il val
liable effect on human character, and which,
strangely enough, all strengthen health and
increase the length of life Married life is
the great foe Of Thousand immoralities that
cut short life, aud is the friend of peace
Ten single men enlist as soldiers or throw
their lives away in fights TO one married.
Phiiadelphia Ledger.