Year: 1872

A Fearful Bill or Mortslity-Mcw York


Against Us.


The official report Of the death List Of this
city for the Last week is 1,569 the heaviest bill
of mortality for one week ever known on Man.
haitian Island We have never had anything
approaching it before. For the week ending
July 16, 1868, there were H. 142 deaths reported,
and for the week ending July %, 1870, the
death report was 1,O48, and these are the only
years preceding this Of 1872 for which we
have death record in any week exceeding over
one thousand.


For the week ending July 1872 the deaths 1869
For the week ending June 20. 76S


Increase in one week.. sol


This awful increase is due to the late unusu-
ally severe and protracted term of continuous
heat--a term of some two weeks duration, the
deadly effects of which increased and widened
as the heat went on, until for the dreadful
week, ending yesterday, we have this startling
death roll of 1869. The deaths reported from
sunstrokes form only an item in the list re-
sulting from these exhausting and destructive
heats Many invalids, sufferers from various
diseases, and many persons of enfeebled con-
stitutions, many weak from the infrmities of
age, and very many children in the feebleness
of infancy, who otherwise would doubt
less have survived, were exhausted
and died from the additional pres
sure Of this late, long siege Of East Indian
July weather. We have had nothing to COM
pare with this terrible siege heretofore, and we
hope and pray that we may have nothing to
compare with it hereafter. And yet we have
cause to to be thankful that, with the coming
of this dreadful manifestation of the deadly
power Of the sun, the material source of light
and life to our planet, our city was not suffer-
ing from any epidemic and that our streets,
compared with their filthy condition few
months ago, had, to considerable extent,
been made tolerably clean.


But still we have much to do in street
cleaning in the publication of our tenement
houses and shanties; in the drainage of
sunken lots and their pools Of stagnant and
filthy piers docks and lots dilled with garbage
all round the island Compare the weekly
death reports of New York with those of Lon
don, and the average for the year Iany year)
is heavily against us. Why so? This is
question of vital Importance to us oil, and it
cannot be truly answered without admitting
that the heavy balance from week to week of
the death list against us, compared with that
of London, is due mainly to the balance of
filth of all descriptions and neglect on our
side. Look at this London report for the
week ending June 20, the nearest at hand,
alongside this weekly New York report for
July -


London population 8, $50 ,OOO), weekly mortality


New York population 1000, ,OOO, mortality re-


port Tor week ending July 6................. 500


But take our weekly average of deaths for
the year of say five hundred, and the balance
is still heavily against u.s. But it may be
said that many of these who die in New York
are Europeans, whose constitutions are not
equal to the severe droughts, heats and frosts
of the American climate; that the general
dryness of our atmosphere is for years ex-
hausting to the European, and particularly to
persons coming from the soft, moist climates
of Ireland and Great Britain, or from the
pleasant mountain regions of Germany; and
it may be said, too, that considerable item
in our death list is due to the paupers, out
laws and vagrants drifting into this city from
all other parts Of the world, and to the disso-
lutte and reckless lives they lead here. Yet
these classes are much more numerous in Lon
don than they are in New York, and their dis
solute habits and the dens in which they sleep
are at least as bad as the worst we can
produce.


Nevertheless, the weekly balance in the COM
parative bills of mortality is still against us.
Perhaps, then, London has the advantage
No, on the contrary, the advantage is
ours, for the situation of New York, on an
elevated island, with broad and deep tidal
river on each side, and with the broad sea just
below us, is one of the healthiest situations in
the world. No city on the earth is more highly
favored by nature for purposes of health and
cleanliness Our excessive bills of mortality,
then, to cut short the argument, are mainly
due to the neglect and carelessness of our city
authorities and our citizens in reference to the
sanitary provisions, precautions and improve
ments necessary to maintain the health of our
city with its increasing population. And the
moral of all this is that we must improve the
health of our city, as we can improve it, or
prepare to see, to greater extent than ever,
other cities and towns built up at our expense.


DEATH OF JUDGE McCUNN. Judge McCunn
of the Superior Court, whose impeachment by
the Senate, at Albany and subsequent removal
has excited no small share of public attention,
died at an early hour yesterday morning at
his residence, in this city. Over-excitement
and consequent prostration, the natural con-