the farmer the number of sheep or cattle he has, while it passes by the teacher and does not ask the number of pupils in his district but gets the information in another way. It selects the person or persons from whom it is likely to get the most correct information, and that is always some person having essential relation to the case. If the State has the right to call on anybody, it has the right to make this choice. The fact of payment or non-payment does not determine the right of the State to exact the service, for, if the State has no right to command this and other services of a citizen because of his special relations and capacity for correct information, it has no right to make him impart the information because of the proffer of pay.

If, however, it is claimed that the State should offer compensation, the reply is:

1st. That the State necessarily requires many duties of its citizens for which they get compensation in a general way, and for which it does not give specific remuneration. It sends out its census blanks or property blanks, and proffers no pay for their infilling. It requires reports of business and incomes, if it deems such returns to be needful. It summons persons on jury without attempt at any adequate pay for their time. It compels able-bodied men, if called out by an officer, to aid him in arrest, if no police force is at hand, and detains innocent persons as witnesses, if the public good requires it. The law imposes many duties on citizens and classes of citizens without direct compensation, where such duties are not burdensome or where they grow out of the special relations the individual has come to bear to society or to the State. It is, of course, important that these duties should not be unduly multiplied, or that no one person should have exacted from him a variety of such special duties. But when it is remembered that professional life practically excuses the physician from all jury duty, and recognizes him as an expert to a degree that allows him some compensation for services rendered, it can scarcely be claimed that the requisition as to these returns is burdensome.

It is to be remembered that the laws as to vaccination, as well as the general guard over births and deaths, results in emoluments to the profession at large. Even the right to practice medicine at all in a State is not a right inherent to the individual, but has to do so intimately with the health of the people that it has always been regarded as special in its character.

So readily has the right of States to require these returns to be

made been conceded by the medical profession, that we know of but one case that has ever reached the Supreme Court, viz., the case of the State of Iowa v. D. M. Hamilton (1882). The opinion of the court was given by Justice Beck, and on this point is as follows:

"The statute requires the collection of statistics pertaining to the population of the State and the health of the people, which may impart information useful in the enactment of laws and valuable to science and the medical profession, to whom the people will look for remedies for disease and for means tending to preserve health. The objects of the statute are within the authority of the State, and may be attained in the exercise of its police power. Similar objects are contemplated by States requiring a census."

The same principles of law are well stated by Dorman B. Eaton, Esq., now of the Civil Service Commission, in an article on "Sanitary Legislation in England" (New York, 1872). Also, in a paper by O. W. Wight, M.D., counselor-at-law, Detroit (A. P. H. Asso., 1882); in an article by Thomas M. Cooley, LL. D., of the Supreme Court of Michigan, on "What can the law do for the health of the people?" and in the case of the State of West Virginia v. F. M. Dent, before the Supreme Court (Justice Green), as decided November 1st, 1884.

"If a legislature saw fit to make it a condition that practitioners of medicine should not practice without a stated license, for which they should pay a fee, they might do so, or they may make the simple and easier condition that they shall give certificates of death or birth, and be registered as physicians." The court, in the case of Bradley v. N. Y. & N. H. R. R. Co., 21 Conn. 306, plainly enunciates the principle which covers all these cases: "It is universally understood to be one of the implied and necessary conditions upon which men enter into society and form governments, that sacrifices must sometimes be required of individuals for the general benefit of the community for which they have no rightful claim to specific compensation." Our State has shown that it has not the least tendency to be exacting in this regard by the terms of the law as to certificates of marriage, birth and death. In cases where a Board of Health, on account of threatening contagion, sees fit also to require for a time a report of contagious diseases, it allows adequate compensation, and thus draws the line between a vital event and the incidents of sickness.

Formerly, it was required of ministers to register marriages in the

county clerk's office of the county of their residence, and to pay one shilling for the registry. The law has now been made the same for them as it is for physicians and undertakers.

But one complaint has reached us the last year-from a physician— who, while intelligent in other matters, plainly shows that he has not given the same deliberate study to political economy or to the reciprocal relations of the State and the citizen, that he has to the more technical and business study of his profession. We have greatly to thank the medical profession of the State for the earnestness with which, as a body, it has responded to the efforts in behalf of public health, and believe that the State documents on the subject, which are mailed to all physicians, have aided in developing this interest. It is one of the satisfactions of this service that we are so often able to answer the inquiries of physicians or to direct them to sources of exact information on topics concerning the physical welfare of the people.

On the part of ministers, justices of the peace and others who perform marriage ceremonies, the returns are mostly satisfactory. It is very important that no marriage should escape record. Small books are now provided, similar to those for death and birth record, which can be carried in the pocket when needed, while the stub serves to keep that record which needs to be retained by the person officiating. These prepared books can be had by ministers and physicians instead of the blanks in stub, by applying to the city registrar or assessor, or by a postal directed to this office.

REMARKS ON SOME OF THE SEMI-DECENNIAL

TABLES OF THIS AND THE FORMER
REPORT,

WITH A RECORD OF THE NATIONALITY OF THOSE MARRIED IN
THE STATE.

The seventh annual report of the State Board of Health contains the fifth report of the medical superintendent of vital statistics, under the re-organized method of securing returns. In connection with it is given a condensed statement of certain facts as to marriages, births and deaths for the five years ending June 30th, 1843. Also the climatology of New Jersey for the same period, as registered at seven representative localities in the State.

A table as to marriages which could not be completed in time for the former report, is also contained in this report.

The design has been so to group figures for the last five years as to give a larger aggregate of vital facts as to our population. It is not possible to state all the vital facts as to every marriage, birth or death that occurs, since, in some cases, they are not known or given, and in others supplemental reports were too late to be analyzed with the others. But this does not affect the series of facts collected as to the large numbers, about which statistics in full have been furnished since. If a sufficiently large number of data, reaching over a sufficiently large number of years, are secured, it is safe to infer that what has been found true of many tens of thousands through a series of years, would also be equally true of any small fraction thereof, whose record has not been reported or secured.

While the yearly returns of marriages, births and deaths are of much value as considered yearly, yet it is always to be remembered that the general health of any locality is never to be inferred from the record of a single year; generally the population is not large enough