t belong to
other portions of the civilized communities amongst which its members
dwell. The distinctness of the Jews in the midst of other and mixed
races singles them out specially for observation, and the history they
present of vitality, or, in other words, of the resistance to those
influences which tend to shorten the natural cycle of life, is
singularly instructive.

"The resistance dates from the first to the last periods of life.
Hoffmann finds that in Germany, from 1823 to 1840, the number of
still-born among the Jews was as 1 in 39, while with other races it was
1 in 40. Mayer finds that in Furth children from one to five years of
age die in the proportion of 10 per cent. among the Jewish, and 14 per
cent. among the Christian population. M. Neufville, dealing with the
same subject, from the statistics of Frankfurt, gives even a more
favorable proportion of vitality to the Jewish child population.
Continuing his estimates from the ages named into riper years, the value
of life is still in favor of the Jews, the average duration of the life
of the Jew being forty years and nine months and that of the Christian
being thirty-six years and eleven months. In the total of all ages, the
half of the Jews born reach the age of fifty-three years and one month,
whilst half of the Christians born only reach the age of thirty-six
years. A quarter of the Jewish population born is found living beyond
seventy-one years, but a quarter of the Christian population is found
living beyond fifty-nine years and ten months only. The Civil State
extracts of Prussia give to the Jews a mortality of 1.61 per cent.; to
the whole kingdom, 2.62 per cent. To the Jews they give an annual
increase of 1.73 per cent.; to the Christian, 1.36 per cent. The
effective of the Jews require a period of forty-one years and a half to
double themselves; those of other races, fifty-one years. In 1849,
Prussia returned one death for every forty-one of the Jews and one for
every thirty-two of the remaining population.

"The Jews escaped the great epidemics more readily than the other races
with whom they lived. Thus, the mortality from cholera amongst them is
so small that the very fact of its occurrence has been disputed. Lastly,
that element of mortality, suicide, which we may look upon
philosophically as a phenomenon of disease, is computed by Glatter, from
a proportion of one million of inhabitants of Prussia, Bavaria,
Wuertemburg, Austria, Hungary, an