The Diamond Drill

WAR'S DEATH RATE.

Canada has published figures on casualties among its fighting forces that give a surprising result when analyzed. They show that the dangers of war are very much less than the ordinary mind is apt to think them.

Taking the number of deaths from all causes, and even including as dead those classed as "missing" or as "presumed dead," it appears that the mortality rate of the soldiers has been very little greater than the ordinary rate of death in civilian population. At the most it does not seem to exceed 20 in the thousand among the troops raised in the Dominion, and although our most recent reports in the United States show a rate of less than 14 in the thousand it has been as high as 19.5 in the thousand throughout what is known as the registration area of the country.

On their face the Canadian statistics would show that army life under actual fighting conditions is hardly more dangerous than life under normal conditions. Of course, the deduction is not wholly correct; some allowance must be made for that fact that the men taken for the armies are selected risks and that the mortality among them would be lower than the average for all ages of people. But even when this is taken into account and every possible factor is reckoned with there still remains a feeling of surprise on finding that war's perils measure up so much less than imagination makes them appear.