Page 284 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

280 WIGCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

uniform good health of its inhabitants. How seldom are our
business ranks invaded by death. I do not include in this re-
mark that class of persons who inflict self-murder, by their
intemperate habits and vicious excesses ; but take the men of
sobriety and good habits among the n~erchants, the mechanics,
and the professional men, and how seldom are we called upon
to bear them to their final resting place. To bc sure, age and
accident, and human vicissitude keep on the maroh, regardless
of time, of people, or of country. But as proof of the health-
fulness of our city, let me state that of the list of merchants
whose names I gavc you as doing business here in 1840, and
who have continued to live here, not one has died in that time
with but a single exception. This was Mr. TAYLOR, the part-
ner of Mr. CARY. IIe died, I think, in 1842 or '43, and was
an infirm man when he came. Among the lawyers, the physi-
aians, the clergymen, and leading mechanics of that time, the
following deaths have occurred : Dr. PROUDPIT, Mr. DONEY,
Rev. hlr. HULL, Dr. IIEWETT, CHAS. J. LYNDE, and H. N.
WELLS. Dr. PROUPFIT died of fever induced by excessive ex-
posure to the cold of the terrible winter of 1842 and '43. BIr.
HULL died suddenly, about 1843, of an inflammatory disease.
Mr. LYNDE was lost on the ill-fated Erie. Mr. DONICY died
in advanced life of pulmonary disease. Dr. HEWETT died of
consumption, and the late Judge WELLS has recently passed
from among us. Seven deaths, all told, in a period of eighteen
years, in a list of more than sixty persons, embracing the en-
tire number of mercha~~ts, lawyers, physioians, clergymen, and
most of the active business men of the day, not embraced in
the above classes. Though unaccustomed to the study of health
tables, I have long supposed that this per centage of mortality
was very small for that length of time, and as a specimen for
any curious inquirer into the laws of health, for examination,
as to whether these men who have been thus favored with pro-
tracted life, and in the meantime been in the enjoyment of fair