ample for their
accommodation. They are clothed and fed with extraordinary care, and are
supposed to have every means of health. And yet their record shows a sad
difference between their rate of mortality and that of men of the same
ages in civil life. A similar excess of mortality was found to exist
among all the home-army, which includes many thousand soldiers,
stationed in various towns and places throughout the kingdom.

The following table exhibits the annual mortality in these classes.[5]

DEATHS IN 10,000.
Age Civilians Foot-Guards Home-Army

20 to 25 84 216 170
25 to 30 92 211 183
30 to 35 102 195 184
35 to 40 116 224 193

Through the fifteen years from 1839 to 1853 inclusive, the annual
mortality of all the army, excepting the artillery, engineers, and West
India and colonial corps, was 330 among 10,000 living; while that among
the same number of males of the army-ages, in all England and Wales, was
92, and in the healthiest districts only 77.[6]

There is no official account at hand of the general mortality in the
Russian army on the peace-establishment; yet, according to Boudin, in
one portion, consisting of 192,834 men, 144,352 had been sick, and
7,541, or 38 per 1,000, died in one year.[7]

The Prussian army, with an average of 150,582 men, lost by death, during
the ten years 1829 to 1838, 1,975 in each year, which is at the rate of
13 per 1,000 living.[8]

The mortality of the Piedmontese army, from 1834 to 1843 inclusive, was
158 in 10,000, while that of the males at home was 92 in the same number
living.

From 1775 to 1791, seventeen years, the mortality among the cavalry was
181, and among the infantry 349, out of 10,000 living; but in the ten
years from 1834 to 1843 these rates were only 108 and 215.[9]

Colored troops are employed by the British Government in all their
colonies and possessions in tropical climates. The mortality of these
soldiers is known, and also that of the colored male civilians in the
East Indies and in the West-India Islands and South-American Provinces.
In four of these, the rate of mortality is higher among the male slaves
than among the colored soldiers; but in all the others, this rate is
higher in the army. In all the West-Indian and South-American
possessions of Great Britain, the average rate of deaths is 25 per cent,
greater among the black troops than amon