stenchy atmosphere
without, by imperfect protection of house and clothing, we shall find
the same diseases there as in the army. Wherever the vital forces are
depressed, there these diseases of low vitality happen most frequently
and are most fatal.

Volumes of other facts and statements might be quoted to show that
military service is exhaustive of vital force more than the pursuits of
civil life. It is so even in time of peace, and it is remarkably so in
time of war. Comparing the English statements of the mortality in the
army with the calculations of the expectation of life in the general
community, the difference is at once manifest.

Of 10,000 men at the age of twenty, there will die before they complete
their fortieth year,--

British army in time of peace, 3,058
England and Wales, English Life-Table, 1,853
According to tables of Amicable and
Equitable Life-Insurance Companies, 1,972
New England and New York, according
to the tables of the New-England
Mutual Life-Insurance Company, 1,721

DANGERS IN LAND-BATTLES.

This large amount of disease and mortality in the army arises not from
the battle-field, but belongs to the camp, the tent, the barrack, the
cantonment; and it is as certain, though not so great, in time of peace,
when no harm is inflicted by the instruments of destruction, as in time
of war. The battle, which is the world's terror, is comparatively
harmless. The official histories of the deadly struggles of armies show
that they are not so wasteful of life as is generally supposed. Mr.
William Barwick Hodge examined the records and despatches in the
War-Office in London, and from these and other sources prepared an
exceedingly valuable and instructive paper on "The Mortality arising
from Military Operations," which was read before the London Statistical
Society, and printed in the nineteenth volume of the Society's journal.
Some of the tables will be as interesting to Americans as to Englishmen.
On the following page is a tabular view, taken from this work, of the
casualties in nineteen battles fought by the British armies with those
of other nations.

TABLE 1.--NINETEEN LAND-BATTLES.
BRITISH
Casualties
Killed in battle
Officers ---------------