ges, on
an average, in each year; but in the healthiest districts the rate is
only 77 in 10,000. The mortality among the males of Massachusetts, of
the same ages, according to Mr. Elliott's calculations, is 1.11 per
cent, or 111 in 10,000. This maybe safely assumed as the rate of
mortality in all New England. That of the Southern States is somewhat
greater.

These rates of sickness and death--one and a half or one and ninety-two
hundredths per cent, constantly sick, and seventy-seven to one hundred
and eleven dying, in each year, among ten thousand living--may be
considered as the proportion of males, of the army-ages, that should be
constantly taken away from active labor and business by illness, and
that should be annually lost by death. Whether at home, amidst the
usually favorable circumstances and the average comforts, or in the
army, under privation and exposure, men of these ages may be presumed to
be necessarily subject to this amount, at least, of loss of vital force
and life. And these rates may be adopted as the standard of comparison
of the sanitary influences of civil and military life.

SICKNESS AND MORTALITY OF THE ARMY IN PEACE.

Soldiers are subject to different influences and exposures, and their
waste and loss of life differ, in peace and war. In peace they are
mostly stationary, at posts, forts, and in cantonments. They generally
live in barracks, with fixed habits and sufficient means of subsistence.
They have their regular supplies of food and clothing and labor, and are
protected from the elements, heat, cold, and storms. They are seldom or
never subjected to privation or excessive fatigue. But in war they are
in the field, and sleep in tents which are generally too full and often
densely crowded. Sometimes they sleep in huts, and occasionally in the
open air. They are liable to exposures, hardships, and privations, to
uncertain supplies of food and bad cookery.

The report of the commission appointed by the British Government to
inquire into the sanitary condition, of the army shows a remarkable and
unexpected degree of mortality among the troops stationed at home under
the most favorable circumstances, as well as among those abroad. The
Foot-Guards are the very _elite_ of the whole army; they are the most
perfect of the faultless in form and in health. They are the pets of the
Government and the people. They are stationed at London and Windsor, and
lodged in magnificent barracks, apparently