A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

“deadly” indulgence in ice-water, or she does not keep

the run of her death-rate as sharply as Europe does.

I think we do keep up the death statistics accurately;

and if we do, our cities are healthier than the cities

of Europe. Every month the German government tabulates

the death-rate of the world and publishes it. I scrap-booked

these reports during several months, and it was curious

to see how regular and persistently each city repeated

its same death-rate month after month. The tables might

as well have been stereotyped, they varied so little.

These tables were based upon weekly reports showing the

average of deaths in each 1,000 population for a year.

Munich was always present with her 33 deaths in each

1,000 of her population (yearly average), Chicago was

as constant with her 15 or 17, Dublin with her 48–and

so on.

Only a few American cities appear in these tables, but they

are scattered so widely over the country that they furnish

a good general average of CITY health in the United States;

and I think it will be granted that our towns and villages

are healthier than our cities.

Here is the average of the only American cities reported

in the German tables:

Chicago, deaths in 1,000 population annually,

16; Philadelphia, 18; St. Louis, 18; San Francisco,

19; New York (the Dublin of America), 23.

See how the figures jump up, as soon as one arrives

at the transatlantic list:

Paris, 27; Glasgow, 27; London, 28; Vienna, 28;

Augsburg, 28; Braunschweig, 28; K:onigsberg, 29;

Cologne, 29; Dresden, 29; Hamburg, 29; Berlin, 30;

Bombay, 30; Warsaw, 31; Breslau, 31; Odessa, 32;

Munich, 33; Strasburg, 33, Pesth, 35; Cassel, 35;

Lisbon, 36; Liverpool, 36; Prague, 37; Madras, 37;

Bucharest, 39; St. Petersburg, 40; Trieste, 40;

Alexandria (Egypt), 43; Dublin, 48; Calcutta, 55.

Edinburgh is as healthy as New York–23; but there

is no CITY in the entire list which is healthier,

except Frankfort-on-the-Main–20. But Frankfort is not

as healthy as Chicago, San Francisco, St. Louis, or Philadelphia.

Perhaps a strict average of the world might develop the fact

that where one in 1,000 of America’s population dies,

two in 1,000 of the other populations of the earth succumb.

I do not like to make insinuations, but I do think

the above statistics darkly suggest that these people

over here drink this detestable water “on the sly.”

We climbed the moraine on the opposite side of the glacier,

and then crept along its sharp ridge a hundred yards or so,

in pretty constant danger of a tumble to the glacier below.

The fall would have been only one hundred feet, but it

would have closed me out as effectually as one thousand,

therefore I respected the distance accordingly, and was

glad when the trip was done. A moraine is an ugly thing

to assault head-first. At a distance it looks like an endless

grave of fine sand, accurately shaped and nicely smoothed;

but close by, it is found to be made mainly of rough

boulders of all sizes, from that of a man’s head to that of

a cottage.

By and by we came to the Mauvais Pas, or the Villainous Road,

to translate it feelingly. It was a breakneck path

around the face of a precipice forth or fifty feet high,

and nothing to hang on to but some iron railings.

I got along, slowly, safely, and uncomfortably, and finally

reached the middle. My hopes began to rise a little,

but they were quickly blighted; for there I met a hog–a

long-nosed, bristly fellow, that held up his snout

and worked his nostrils at me inquiringly. A hog on

a pleasure excursion in Switzerland–think of it! It is

striking and unusual; a body might write a poem about it.

He could not retreat, if he had been disposed to do it.

It would have been foolish to stand upon our dignity

in a place where there was hardly room to stand upon

our feet, so we did nothing of the sort. There were

twenty or thirty ladies and gentlemen behind us; we all

turned about and went back, and the hog followed behind.

The creature did not seem set up by what he had done;