Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

bringing upon future generations two calamities at once, -a want of fuel and a scarcity of water.

The most unsatisfactory chapter of the book is the first, which is devoted to a brief summary of vegetable physiology, though here the numerous faults chiefly relate to matters of detail. They are, besides, greatly exaggerated by the incompetency of the translator, who in numerous passages has attained only a dim perception of his author's meaning. Mr. George Law may have done his best; but he appears to lack two rather important qualifications of a translator; namely, an adequate acquaintance with the subject of his author's book, and with the language in which it is written.* The editor's notes, even upon practical subjects, and his introductory comments, are of a similar character; as, for instance, where he controverts his author's views upon the philosophy of the dunghill; - but here, as Mrs. Malaprop would say, "comparisons are odorous," and we cannot engage in the discussion. We may, however, venture to advise the enterprising New York publishers to procure a new translation by some competent hand, when a second edition of this very valuable work is needed.

M. Boussingault, confining himself to his legitimate province, scarcely touches upon questions of pure physiology. But we are glad to notice, that he does not seem to countenance doctrines just now rife and popular, which would resolve all the phenomena of life into ordinary, or extraordinary, chemical or molecular action, doctrines extremely seducing to young and unwary chemists, which the specious writings of Liebig have done much to bring into vogue, and of which Mulder now appears to be the foremost expounder. We shall probably have occasion to examine them in extenso at no distant day, in their connection with the recent progress and tendencies of chemicophysiological science.

3. Registration of Births, Marriages, and Deaths in Massachusetts in 1844. Third Annual Report. By JOHN G. PALFREY, Secretary of the Commonwealth. Boston. 1845. 8vo. pp. xxix, 110.

An act was passed in Massachusetts, in 1842, providing for an annual return of births, marriages, and deaths in the State. This

* The readers of the English version may be somewhat surprised to find mahogany mentioned as a dye-wood. But the translator has merely taken a fancy to apply this name, instead of logwood, to bois de Campè che, or Hæmatoxylon Campechianum.

is the first attempt that has come to our knowledge for obtaining a series of exact annual reports of this description in any State in the United States. Some defects being developed by experience in the provisions and actual working of that law, a new one was passed in 1844. This report is made under the former law, the latter having gone into effect only a few weeks previous to the 1st of May, 1844, when the registration year covered by the report terminated. The present law provides for the return of the date of the birth, the place, name of the child (if named), sex, names of the parents, their residence, and the occupation of the father; of marriages, the date, place, by what clergyman or magistrate, names of the parties married, residence of each, whether both were single, or both or either had been before married, the occupation of each, names of their respective parents; and of the deaths, the date, name, sex, whether single or married, age, occupation, place of birth, names of parents, and the disease or cause of death. A record of all these facts is to be made by the town-clerk in each town, who is entitled to receive eight cents from the town or city treasury for the record of each birth and each death; a clergyman or magistrate officiating at the celebration of any marriage is required to make a return of the same to the town-clerk within the first ten days of the next month, under a penalty of twenty to a hundred dollars; every sexton, or other person having charge of a burial-ground, is also required, within the first ten days of each month, to make a return to the town-clerk of the facts relative to any person whose burial he may have superintended during the preceding month, and is entitled to receive from the town treasury five cents for the return of each death; the school-committee of each town is required to ascertain, on or before the last of May annually, the births and facts relative thereto in their town during the year preceding the first of that month, and the committee, or the person authorized by them, is entitled to receive from the town treasury five cents for the return of the facts relative to each birth.

Such is the machinery for collecting these very important statistics. The first returns made under the first law were, as was to be expected, very imperfect. The second report was better, but still quite imperfect. The third, which is the subject of this notice, is a great improvement upon the two preceding, as the officers had the advantage of former experience in making their returns, and the indefatigable activity and industry of Mr. Secreary Palfrey, in supplying blank forms to the town-clerks, and corresponding with them, and giving them instructions relative to the records, have contributed essentially to the improvement of this report. Still it presents many chasms; and one most re

markable; there being no return whatever reported from the city of Boston, of either births, marriages, or deaths. This is the more singular, as a complete register of deaths has been kept by the superintendent of burial-grounds, and it is hardly credible that the clergymen and magistrates, before whom marriages have been celebrated, have exposed themselves to very considerable penalties, by a total neglect to make reports; and one might suppose that the school-committee could have employed a competent person to collect the facts relative to births, for the compensation allowed by law. Other large towns seem to have endeavoured to comply with the law. We have made inquiries, but without success, to ascertain the cause of this singular delinquency of Boston in a matter in which it is more interested than any other town in the State, and whose inhabitants and public officers are not wont to be behind others in any measure of public utility.

It is to be hoped that Massachusetts will persevere, until it presents an example, which will soon be followed by other States, of a complete record of the statistics of the population. Such statistics, when accurately collected, on sufficient authority, and arranged in tables, in such manner that the general results are apparent at a glance, according to the recent practice in England, and the plan adopted by Mr. Secretary Palfrey, are full of interest and instruction to the legislator and the philanthropist, and of incalculable utility in their bearing and influence upon proceedings connected with the public welfare, and in the admin. istration and management of private rights and interests. They are not merely matters of speculative curiosity, but form the actual basis of legislation, and of the proceedings of voluntary associations and individuals for the melioration of the condition of the people. In order to know what will promote the welfare of a people, and what will be prejudicial to them, it is quite material to know the facts relative to the population; and such facts can be collected only by the government. These statistics enter into affairs, and are essential in determining the rights of persons, in a thousand ways. The value of a widow's dower, for instance, or of any life estate, must frequently be decided upon by the judicial tribunals; and this cannot be done correctly in any community without a long continued registry of births and deaths. The value of such an interest has been erroneously estimated in Massachusetts for a long series of years, and, indeed, ever since any such estimate was first made, for the want of such a registry. For it is easy to show, that Professor Wigglesworth's tables of mortality, by which the value of such rights has been settled in Massachusetts, and more or less in other States, are not correct.

It is not now pos

He himself stated that they were not correct. sible to construct an accurate table of longevity for any part of the United States from any series of well authenticated statistics. In computing rates of premium for insurance on lives, and the value of annuities, the same difficulty occurs as in estimating the value of life estates. The returns collected and digested in the secretary's reports already made in Massachusetts afford considerable materials for such computations; still, with these and all the other data to be found for the purpose, only an approximation can be made towards the construction of an accurate scale of the value of lives.

Some light is shed by these reports upon another subject of much interest; namely, the rate and causes of the increase of the population in this country. It appears from the recent statistics in England, that the average age of marriage of maidens is there 243; whereas, from these annual reports of the secretary, it is to be inferred, that in Massachusetts the average age of maidens at their marriage is about 23. The return of this fact of the age has caused more inconvenience and dissatisfaction than that of any other required by the law. The clergyman requested to attend a marriage is reluctant to put such an inquiry, and, if he does, he is liable sometimes to receive a short answer, quite aside from the purpose. This is not because the parties gener

ally expect or wish to conceal their age; an attempt at such concealment is ordinarily both silly and ridiculous, since the fact is usually notorious to one's acquaintances. When there is any plain object for putting this inquiry in the course of business, not one person in a hundred will affect any reserve. But where the occasion for the inquiry is not obvious, the making it savors, somewhat of impertinence. It is probable that the law has not hit upon the most convenient way of ascertaining this fact. Accordingly, representations were made at the last session of the legislature against this part of the law; and, as is very apt to be the result in such cases,—since it is much easier, and more within the reach of the unskilful, to destroy than to build up or amend, — the proceedings preliminary to legislation on the subject resulted in a proposition to repeal the law, and sweep the whole subject of registration by the board. This proposition did not succeed, and it is to be hoped that it will never again be made. It is likely, however, to have the effect of encouraging municipal officers in their neglect. There is, therefore, the more occasion for publicspirited, liberal-minded persons to use their exertions to promote the execution of the law, and its amendment in any particulars in which it is found not to work well.

VOL. LXI. -No. 128.

22

--

4. The Botanical Text-Book, for Colleges, Schools, and Pri vate Students; comprising, Part I. An Introduction to Structural and Physiological Botany. Part II. The Principles of Systematic Botany; with an Account of the Chief Natural Families of the Vegetable Kingdom, and Notices of the Principal Useful Plants. Second Edition, illustrated with more than a Thousand Engrav. ings on Wood. By ASA GRAY, M. D., Fisher Professor of Natural History in Harvard University. New York: Wiley & Putnam. 1845. 12mo. pp. 509.

THE first edition of this work, published less than three years ago, was favorably reviewed in our number for January, 1843. The justice of the hearty commendations then bestowed upon it, which have been echoed from the other side of the Atlantic, is confirmed by the call for a new edition. We ought rather to say, that a new treatise has been written to supply the place of the former one. This was rendered almost necessary, indeed; partly on account of the rapid advancement which physiological botany, no less than all the natural sciences, is continually mak. ing; and partly because Dr. Gray's experience as a teacher, since the first edition was published, has enabled him to discern, as only a teacher can do, the points which were defective, or which required more detailed explanation. He has thus had the advan tage of making a practical trial of his own theories, and of the sufficiency of their exposition. The progressive improvement of the whole cousinhood of the sciences has been so marked of late, that it is dangerous now to presume upon an acquaintance with them, merely on the strength of an intimacy formed a few years ago. Stereotype text-books, however they may answer the pur pose in other departments of knowledge, which vary only from century to century, are here quite out of the question.

We are glad to see, therefore, that the author of the Botanical Text-Book, on the occasion of a new edition being required, has made such a good use of the opportunity, and of his professional experience, and has recomposed, and almost entirely rewrit ten, the first, and, in the author's view, the most essential, part of the work, that upon structural and physiological botany, which has here been amplified to nearly twice its former extent. The author correctly remarks in his preface, that "this part of the volume, instead of having been rendered more abstruse by the enlargement, will rather be found to be more simple and generally intelligible than before." This is owing to the greater expansion he has given to the abstruse points, to the increased

« AnteriorContinua »