Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1895 — TOPICS OF THESE TIMES. [ARTICLE]

TOPICS OF THESE TIMES.

‘•WHAT KILLS US.” *' People die from a variety o! causes. Some have been known t< perish for lack of breath, but this route to the great beyond is considered very old-fashioned now-a-days. Strictly upHo-date people are saic to prefer “heart failure” as a means of exit from this vale of tears. Out observation is that this form of exit is coming more and more into vogue with peoplewho are generally classed as “upper ten.” In fact we do not recall a single case of heart failure among what are generally termed the “mudsills” of society. They may occasionally perish from this cause, but the cases are rare and the lynx-eyed agents of the Associated Press fail to make a note o! it. Large numbers succumb to’common diseases like consumption anc pneumonia, a andj their passing makes no ripple cn the human sea—the manner of their taking off being too commonplace to excite comment or gain for them a word of sympathy or recognition from the surviving mass. It is only when death results from unknown or uncommoc causes that the monster awes or thrills or startles all mankind into a realization of impending doom. Thousands and tens of thousands perish every day as a result of nature’s laws, and the world rolls on, while people never pause in their mad pursuit of fame or wealth or pleasure. A hundred lives go into darkness by fire or flood or crashing wreck on land or sea, and nations stand aghast and breathlessly rush to aid the few survivors. The New York World has recently been investigating the relation between the death-rate and density of population,, the rate having been supposed to be much higher in densely populated quarters of large cities. Investigation has shown that the death-rate in large cities in 1895 was per 1,000 as follows: New York, 21.8; London, 19.05; Calcutta, 30; Paris, 20.5: Moscow, 34.5; New Orleans, 27.05: Bombay, 32.05; Prague, 28.05; City of Mexico, 40. Minister —Romero, now stationed at Washington, in a recent article in the Engineering Magazine, shows that this excessive death rate is due to bad drainage. The climate of the high table lands of Mexico is especially salubrious, but the soil of the City of Mexico, the site of the ancient Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, is so saturated with the accumulated" im piilrl ties "of ’many centuries that the sanitary condition has become simply abbminabl'e~’and practically irremediable.