Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Published Writings
  3. Periodicals
  4. Journalism
  5. per.00696

City Mortality

About This Item

  • Title: City Mortality
  • Date: 30 August 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00696
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 30 August 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Elva Moreno Del Rio Amy Kapp Samantha Gilmore Thara Michaelis Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "City Mortality." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00696.xml (TEI)
image 1image 2image 3image 4cropped image 1

CITY MORTALITY.—

A correspondent of the Herald computes that the weekly mortality in London is 66 per cent. less in proportion than that of New York and Brooklyn.1 If this be so, it indicates defective sanitary arrangements on our part—being attributable to the want of an effectual system of sewerage in some streets and the dirty condition of the road in others.

Notes:

1. The New York Daily Herald reported the mortality rates for the city of New York in several issues prior to the publication of this article in the Brooklyn Daily Times. This piece could be referencing the New York Daily Herald of August 15 or August 22, 1858. [back]

Back to top