But I should not do justice to this branch of inquiry without noticing the alleged causes of the high mortality of New York. The first is the large foreign immigration. The reliance to be placed upon that scapegoat may be readily shown. Emigration occurs to this country under two conditions: 1. The emigrant is driven from home by famine, in which case the poorer class emigrate, or, 2, he is allured by advantages for labor or business, when the middle classes principally emigrate. Now, it is under the latter circumstances that emigration generally takes place to the United States. This is seen in the vast sums of money which the emigrants now annually bring, and the amounts which they return to their friends as the result of their labor. This class is always very hardy and healthy, as is proved by the small mortality that occurs _in transitu_ being but 4.31 per cent for ten years. Besides, we have the official statements of the Commissioners of Emigration that but 3 per cent remain in the city. [Illustration: A SIXTH WARD FEVER-NEST WITH DEATH-RATE OF 53 IN 1,000] But the City Inspector himself shows the utter fallacy of this alleged cause of excessive mortality in his report for 1860, in which he makes the true explanation, and attributes to its proper cause whatever increased mortality arises from emigrants. He says: “Most of the children who arrive in this city from foreign ports, although suffering from the effects of a protracted voyage, bad accommodations, and worse fare, do not bring with them any marked disease beyond those which, with proper care, nursing, and wholesome air, could not be easily overcome. The causes of this excessive mortality must be searched for in this city, and are readily traceable to the wretched habitations in which parents and children are forced to take up their abode; in the contracted alleys, the tenement house, with its hundreds of occupants, where each cooks, eats, and sleeps in a single room, without light or ventilation, surrounded with filth, an atmosphere foul, fetid, and deadly, with none to console with or advise them, or to apply to for relief when disease invades them.” [Sidenote: The Floating Population] Again, it is alleged that the floating population causes the excess of deaths. But it has been established by Dr. Playfair that the floating population is the most healthy. The same is true of wandering tribes, of a moving army, and equally of individuals. But when they fix their habitations or encamp, that moment the causes of disease begin to gather about them, and unless sanitary regulations are carefully observed, diseases, such as fever, diarrhoeal affections, etc., begin to prevail.