On the Mortality in the United States of America, as deduced from the last Census, in 1860

Extract

There is no country in which, from a combination of circumstances, a census, if accurately taken, is more likely to afford novel and interesting materials than the United States of America. The marvellous progress of the nation, which, in the last 70 years, has increased in numbers from less than 4 millions to nearly 31½ millions in 1860, is alone sufficient to suggest changes in population, in wealth, commerce, cultivation of land, means of transport and circulation, growth of towns, &c., which, if the facts were carefully examined, would throw light upon many obscure questions in social and political economy, and even by the disturbance of their ordinary laws modify and correct the theories which have been mooted.