population is a most intimate factor in relation to disease. Nor is it enough to find out that one is a rural population and another a city population, since parts of the same city differ so much. There are country localities exceedingly prejudicial to health, just as there are city localities and conveniences that may even place parts of a city superior for health to the average country prospect. Besides this, three are four other incidental and modifying facts come into view. If a city is emptied of one-half of its inhabitants for four of five of the summer months, the average death-rate on the basis of its whole population does not give the correct idea. To some extent nationality, length of residence, and, still more, the occupation, modify the significance of the death-rate.

While a yearly statement of death-rates is valuable, all these facts go to show that hasty inferences will not do. Hence the facts furnished in the quinquennial tables of last year are far more important than the statement for any one year. Hence, also, every city is untrue to itself that, instead of repeating tables better kept by the State, does not expend its work in a record of death and causes of death in every house. So a city, say after five or ten years, is able to know precisely its death-dealing and sickness-producing localities. If there is only accuracy, it is wonderful how, ere long, the vital statistician can come to know the significance of data, how to eliminate disturbing facts, how to balance them, and so how to reason upon his statistics. The very act, too, of collecting the data is valuable as leading to close habits of observation, as to the welfare of population. As sickness and the losses by sickness, not only of those that die, but of those that recover or partially so, has a definite proportion to the death-rate, it is to be remembered that every death stands not only for industrial loss, according to the data of age in the person, but also to others who have been sick or those whose time has been occupied in care, so that a sickly household, and more significantly a sickly city or county, has a limitation on its progress and a limitation on its existence more definite and more implacable and a burden more intense than can be put upon it by any other force in the whole range of destructiveness.

So wisely and well did the Jews understand this that in their best nationality their most accurate accounts were kept with the population, and the political problems most studied were those having reference to its care. And amid all their misfortunes this attention to vital

conditions remains as their best heredity. So much so, that with all their enforced disabilities, their vitality is their greatest possession. Their death-rate in cities and in epidemics is much below that of surrounding races, and their pauperism and their crime seldom a burden upon the nations amid which they dwell.

Nearer at home and more recent is the history of the "Society of Friends," which has always kept its most accurate credit and debit account with its people, counting these as a possession and a glory, making accurate record of every vital event, having the community or society, as well as the family, look after each individual. They thus show a hardiness and thrift of stock, of health, of character, of industry and prosperity such as should teach our State what are the demonstrated possibilities, and if we would adopt their plan of population-care and in every respect husband life and health as not mere favors but as things to be secured on a plan for the blessing, prosperity and perpetuity of the State.

Again, in the study of death-rates as one of the indices by which we judge of sanitary conditions, there is need not to rely so mu h upon totals as upon other comparisons. Taking this as the start, it is usual next to find the death-rate from that class of diseases known as zymotic or filth diseases, and which depend much, either for their inception or fatality, upon local conditions. The percentage of deaths of children under five years of age, as also of those under one year of age, form other classes for comparison. It is by the study and comparisons of each of these for sufficient periods, and with sufficient numbers, that greatly aid us in detecting causes of family, local or personal disease. The best English authorities claim that the yearly zymotic death-rate in healthy districts ought not to exceed one to two per thousand, that the whole number of deaths out of every 1,000 births should not exceed 100, and of 1,000 under five years of age not over 175. The moment we come to compare the healthiest localities in healthy country districts we see the great increase caused by artificial conditions. If in England and Wales the general mortality were that of the healthiest districts rating them, as with a death-rate of seventeen per one thousand, it would be equivalent to an annual saving of 115,000 lives.

If for the last five years the death-rate of all New Jersey had been that of Cape May county, there would have been an annual saving of over 6,000 lives. The veteran sanitarian of Great Britain, Mr.

Edwin Chadwick, in his address at Aberdeen, in 1877, thus summed up the results shown by the statistics and experience of his own country:

1. We have gained the power of reducing the sickness and deathrate in most old cities by at least one-third.

2. In new localities, with healthy dwellings, properly constructed drainage and a pure water-supply, we may reasonably look forward to insuring a death-rate of only 10 per 1,000, or less than one-half of the present average death-rate.

3. That in well-provided and well-regulated institutions for children and in prisons and other places under effective sanitary control, the death-rate is not only enormously reduced when compared with that of the general population of the same ages, but a practical immunity can be secured against zymotic diseases.

4. That amongst the general population a reduction by full onehalf of diseases of the lungs may be effected by general public sanitation.

THE STATE CENSUS OF 1885,

AS BEARING UPON VITAL AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS.

The relation of vital statistics to other tables as to population, is such that whenever any enumeration of the people is taken, it becomes the duty of this bureau to examine it in those respects in which it reveals the vital and social status of the people. In the taking of the semi-decennial census of this State, there was need of a consideration of the general law of Congress, which had certain provisions relating to a State census, as also of the acknowledged defects of all previous methods of securing a State census in this State. The Department of State early took the matter in consideration and called into consultation those whose duties made them familiar with studies and methods relating thereto. It was soon found impracticable to attempt to avail ourselves of any Congressional provision, since it was conditioned on the securement of a great variety of schedules and would involve a State expense far beyond that which any one felt to be needed. On the other hand, it was important to avoid the confusion into which the former State census had fallen, and to secure such data as not only would give us the fact of increase or decrease, but also acquaint us with the nationality of the people and their social condition, as revealed by the size and housing of families.

It is believed that the present census has singled out the items most important to be secured in a semi-decennial enumeration of the people, and that it has secured with an accuracy never before attained, the items of information which it has attempted to secure. These are names of persons, their sex, nationality and color, the number of families they represent, the number of families in each house, and the periods of age in which they are distributed.

The ages have been secured in divisions to conform to those used in the vital statistic tables. Although for some purposes it is desirable to know how many are represented in every year, or in every quinquennial period of life, yet the present division will be found avail

able in most comparisons. Those five years of age and under include the age of infancy or entire dependency. From 5 to 20 embraces as near as may be the school period or preparation period of life, one in which comparatively few are self-supporting, but, nevertheless, one in which among the laboring population it has been shown that many, if in good health and of industrious habits, are, as a rule, no expense to their parents. It is the period for school and trade, or business education. From 20 to 60 gives the working or productive period of life in which the average individual should be able to contribute to his own support, and that of the State. Indeed, it is a poor system of social organization or of personal management, if this period does not tend so to preserve health and to exercise working power, physical or mental, as would not only be self-supporting, but to do something toward the support of the declining and less operative years of human life. While over 60 covers a wide range of age, it practically represents a period in which the majority do not make a full livelihood, and are able to contribute but little to the general increase or prosperity. So far as births are concerned, the number being under five years of age is generally found to be about equal to the number who have born and died under that age. Comparisons of these in their respective localities enable us to correct some defects of report in the birth-rate as well as to compare the birth-rate of cities and country, and see where the causes which destroy the infant population are most operative. It would have been still better to have ascertained the number living under one year of age, and to have added these to the number dying under one year, but the increase of columns did not seem to be desirable.

While it would have been desirable to know how many were actually living in married life, it was believed that the now quite complete marriage records of the State and the numbering of the families would acquaint us with the actual facts better than the statement as to each person, whether he or she was married or single. No one can go over any census without suggesting some facts it would have been interesting to secure, but as each additional column adds much to the work, a careful limitation has to be exercised and a selection made.

Much light is thrown upon the social condition of the people by a comparison of the number of dwellings with the number of families. In fact, a comparison of the two columns will generally show not only how many families but how many persons live in one house, while a continuation of the analysis reveals their approximate ages.