Condemned to capital punishment 100 to 150
To hard labour for life 280
Hard labour for a period 1050
Imprisonment 1220

The following curious table has been drawn of the causes that excited to the commission of murder and the means resorted to:

Apparent motives, from
1826 to 1829.		Poison.Murder.Assassination.Incendiary.Total.
Cupidity203923766362
Adultery48976...133
Domestic broils4812013184333
Jealousy and debauchery105811537220
Revenge, hatred, and other motives239034602291615
Total149112910193662663[47]

To what are we to attribute this apparent regularity in the scale of births, deaths, and the commission of crimes? Are we ruled by certain laws that are only changed in the manifestations of Providence, by peculiar visitations, such as war, famine, and pestilential maladies? What a vast and curious field of research and reflection! what an argument for the fatalist! Man no doubt possesses a moral power that to a certain extent subjugates the creation to his influence and his will. Plants and animals seem to obey certain natural laws, that are only disturbed by perturbative agents; and it is difficult to point out what are the human actions that arise from natural impulses, or from accidental circumstances, although experience would tend to show that they bear a singular proportion in the similarity of their results; and one must come although reluctantly to the conclusion, that this perturbative power exercises but a slender influence on the laws of nature, which seem to set at defiance the destructive efforts of man. Thus have we seen of late years, that the most fearful and long-protracted wars, which one might have imagined would have devastated the fairest parts of Europe, have not checked a surprising increase in its population, and the destructive effects of the most fatal pestilence have vanished with a promptness that seemed to keep pace with the preceding havoc. Bigotry and fanaticism are the only scourges which appear to dare the benevolent views of Providence, and when we traverse the desolate fields of most Roman Catholic countries, one would imagine that Heaven has abandoned their inhabitants to their own blind wills and evil ways. Spain at this period and at many epochs of her bloody history, seems to corroborate the fable of the Titans who sought refuge in that ill-fated land from the anger of the gods.[48]

To return: we find in the preceding resumés of longevity that poets are the shortest-lived; next to them, authors on natural religion, dramatists, and novelists. May not this circumstance be attributed to the fervour of their imagination and to their unequal mode of living? A species of madness is the attribute of genius. Many authors on natural religion may come under the denomination of monomaniacs. The jealous irritability of poets and dramatists,—and next to them in the scale of vanity we find musicians,—may also contribute to wear them out, and bring on various chronic diseases, by digestive derangements; more especially as their habits of living are seldom regular, fits of sobriety alternating with bouts of merry-making. Moral philosophers, painters, and sculptors, whose average life appears the longest, follow more sedentary pursuits; and, although artists in general cannot boast of remarkable discretion in their mode of living, the nature of their profession requires much steadiness. It is moreover to be observed that, in the preceding calculation, historical painters have chiefly been noticed. Would the same calculation apply to the lighter branches of the art? It has been remarked that actors generally attain old age, notwithstanding the fatiguing and harassing nature of their profession. This may be attributed to the constant excitement of a similar nature to which they are subject, as well as to their continued exposure to the sudden transitions from heat to cold, which renders them less susceptible of the variations of temperature that affect those who can avoid these vicissitudes. Any person who would expose himself to the constant checked perspirations to which dancers are liable, would infallibly pay dear for the experiment; and those who have had occasion to witness the fatigues of their exercises, marvel at their not being constantly attacked with pulmonary inflammation, and the many maladies that result from similar exposures. On the very same principle, troops when engaged upon active service do not suffer from the inclemency of the weather, although saturated with wet by day, and sleeping under torrents of rain by night. So long as they are marching with an object in view, this excitement supports them, even against hunger; but the moment this excitement ceases, let them halt, in tranquil cantonments, or commence a retreat under unfavourable circumstances, that moment the invasion of disease is observed. The chief source of health and long life is an equilibrious state of the circulation. This condition a moderate mental excitement tends to maintain. Depression, on the contrary, will produce a languid flow of the vital stream, congestion, and chronic diseases.

On the same principle, good temper and hilarity are also necessary to prolong life. Violent passions must tend to occasion dangerous determinations, while the inward gnawings of offended vanity and pride corrode every viscus, and lay the seeds of future mental and bodily sufferings. Apathy and insensibility are, unfortunately, the best sources of peace of mind, and as Fontenelle observed, a good stomach and a bad heart are essential to happiness. Perhaps the best maxim to prolong our days, and render them as tolerable as possible, is the “Bene vivere et lætari.”

I have just observed that conformation materially affects our existence; and this circumstance may in a great measure be referred to temper, and the wear and tear that it occasions in ill-conditioned individuals. Little people seldom attain the longevity of stronger individuals; and it is also a well-known fact that diminutive persons are generally spiteful and malicious. As Providence has bestowed destructive venoms on reptiles, so has it gifted these insignificant members of society with obnoxious qualities, to make amends for their want of physical power in the strategies of attack and defence. The same observation holds good with the deformed; but here we have a moral cause for this sourness of disposition. They too frequently are objects of ridicule, contempt, or pity, sentiments the most humiliating to mankind. In childhood they are not able to partake of the boisterous and active sports of their companions; they have not the power to resent an injury, and the more powerless we are, the greater is our thirst of revenge. Hence does tyranny degrade, and renders its victims cruel and vindictive. The deformed, moreover, find it necessary to improve their intellectual faculties, which in aftertimes fill their quivers with keen shafts of retaliation. In this study they also have more leisure, and they apply to their books while their comrades are at play. This very study adds to their sense of inferiority; they can never hope to share the warrior’s laurels, or, what is perhaps still more painful, the myrtle of successful love. Their only chance of success in either of these careers is by kindling wars by their intrigues, or winning a woman’s heart by intellectual superiority,—two very improbable events. Thus they gradually envy men who are looked upon by the world as their superiors, and hate women for the preference they show to those privileged individuals. In general we find these ill-shaped beings bitterly sarcastic whenever woman’s name is mentioned. Pope, perhaps from these very reasons, was inexhaustible in his abuse of the sex: and Boileau abhorred them, since he had been emasculated by a turkey-cock.

The intellectual superiority of hunchbacks has also been attributed to their physical condition; and it is generally believed that with them the circulation of blood in the brain is more rapid than in well-conformed subjects, and this increased action is supposed to contribute materially to the vivacity of the imagination, and the quickness of apprehension. Another circumstance is said to increase their mental powers, and that is, their continence, considered both by the ancients and the moderns as a source of intellectual energies. Minerva and the Muses were virgins; and in this and other fabulous traditions, we find the ancients illustrating in their mythologic allegories many physical facts and observations. Our Bacon had made the same remark; and Newton, and many other great men, considered the passion of love beneath the dignity of science. Continence and abstinence were deemed by Horace as indispensable privations in the cultivation of genius. In the deformed both are to a certain degree natural, or at least cannot be lost sight of without endangering life. The digestive powers of the deformed are generally weak; and this debility has ever been looked upon as a concomitant of superior intellects. Thus in Celsus, “Imbecilli stomacho penè omnes cupidi litterarum sunt;” while on the contrary, “Obesus venter non parit subtilem intellectum.”

The common expression of a child being too clever to live, is unfortunately founded on observation. Scrofulous and sickly children are in general remarkable for the quickness of their intellects; and Rousseau maintained that a man who could meditate was a depraved animal. It is a fact that the perfection of one faculty can seldom be attained but at the expense of others. The more our faculties are generally called into action, the less perfect will they be individually;—“Pluribus intentus, minor est ad singula.” Thus, the singing of birds is improved by depriving them of sight.

The influence of the mind upon our health is as evident as the influence of our health in the duration of existence. This corollary explains the shortness of life of the diminutive and the deformed, unconnected with such physical defects of organization as might impede the due exercise of their organs.