Chapter XXXIX: Appendix (7)

To save the trouble and expense of a double collection, annual instalments and the interest on the principal sums expended will be collected from the tenant with rates. Where the landlord is under any agreement or obligation to cleanse the cesspools, the tenant will be entitled to deduct from the rent the charge for the drainage and apparatus for cleansing. Where the tenant pays rent weekly, or at shorter periods than quarterly, and does not pay rates, the charge for the works in question is required by the statute to be paid by the owner of the tenement, who will levy the amount with the rent, or make his own terms with the tenant for the improvement in question.

The cost of the required improvements or principal sum, which will be charged at the contract prices, together with the annual instalments and interest thereon, and the weekly charge or improved rent that may be due or charged on the weekly tenant, will be as follows:—

┌───────────────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┐ │ │ │ Annual │ │ │ │ │ Interest, │ │ │ │ │commuted at 5│Weekly Charge│ │ │ Annual │per cent. on │ to the │ │First Outlay per Tenement. │ Instalment │ Outlay, │ Tenant, or │ │ │for Repayment│ charged as │ Increased │ │ │in 30 years. │ Rent on │ Rent. │ │ │ │ Tenant, and │ │ │ │ │ Annual Rent │ │ │ │ │ of Water. │ │ ├───────────────────────────┼──────┬──────┼──────┬──────┼──────┬──────┤ │ £. _s._ _d._│ _s._ │ _d._ │ _s._ │ _d._ │ _s._ │ _d._ │ │Water-closet │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Water-tank 10 8 6│ 6│ 11│ 6│ 8│ 0│ 3│ │ Drain │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │Main Sewer 5 12 0│ 3│ 9│ 3│ 6│ 0│ 1½│ │Water │ │ │ 5│ 0│ 0│ 1│ ├───────────────────────────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼──────┤ │ Total │ 10│ 8│ 15│ 2│ 0│ 5½│ └───────────────────────────┴──────┴──────┴──────┴──────┴──────┴──────┘

If the landlord undertake to cleanse the cesspools, then the additional weekly charge on the occupier for the supplies of water and drainage will be 2½_d._ weekly, involving, as the occupier should be informed, the conveniences, cleanliness, and security to health, and saving of medical expenses.

Persons having only interests in property for years or for determinate periods may, by means of the above table, distribute amongst the persons successively interested in the property the portions of the charge to which they are liable.

The surveyor and officers of sewers are charged with the duty of from time to time inspecting and seeing to the sufficiency of the means of drainage and cleansing. By the terms of the contract the contractor is bound to make good the drains for years, but the tenant will be liable to make good any wanton damage.

The Act gives to the owner of the beneficial interest in the premises the option of executing the prescribed works himself, on giving notice on or before the of such his intention, and entering into his surety to execute them within the time prescribed and according to the contract specifications, to the satisfaction of the officer charged with the superintendence of the work.

30.—_Extracts from Evidence on the Moral and Physical Evils which may be
created by the mode of Hiring and Paying Workmen._

(Extract from Evidence given before a Committee of the House of
Commons.)

CHARLES SAUNDERS.

What is your occupation?—Coal-whipper.

Have the goodness to state to the Committee the manner in which coal whippers are engaged and paid?—I have been in the habit of obtaining a living by coal whipping for the last 10 years, and when I want employment, (me and the likes of me of course,) I have to go to the publican to get a job, to ask him for a job; and he tells me to go and sit down, and he will give me an answer by and by. I go and sit down, and if I have 2_d._ in my pocket, of course I am obliged to spend it, with a view of getting a job; and, probably, when two or three hours have elapsed, by that time there is about 50 or 60 people come on the same errand to the same person for a job. He keeps us three or four hours there; and then he comes out, and he looks round among us, and he knows those well that can drink the most, and those are the people that obtain employment first. Those that cannot drink a great deal, and think more of their family than others do, cannot obtain any employment; those that drink the most get the most employment. When the men are made up for the ship, we go to work the next day morning, but we have to take what the publican calls the allowance, such as a quartern of rum, or three half-quarterns, or a pot of beer, or what not; then they have to take a pot of beer off in a bottle on board,—what he calls beer, but not fit for a man to drink, generally speaking, what I call poison: I have actually teemed it overboard myself, before I could drink it; I could not drink it, although I have been sweating and as thirsty as a man could be, and have put it overboard, and gone and dipped my bottle in a bucket of water.

In the after part of the day, when your work was over, where did you go then?—Then, when we have done our day’s work, we came on shore, and we had to go into the house again; and perhaps we might want a shilling or two to get our families a little support; the landlord would tell us to go and sit down in the tap-room, and he would give us some by and by, and he would keep us there until nine or ten at night; first, we would go for a pint or a pot, or what not, to see whether he was getting ready, for we dare not go empty-handed, without a pot or pint, or to call for something by way of excuse; after keeping us there until nine or ten at night, then he would give us 2_s._ 6_d._ or 3_s._

Were you obliged to spend money in drink?—Yes.

Could you not avoid it by any means?—No.

What would have happened if you had refused to spend money in drink?—Then we could have no employment; and moreover than that, if you had had what you thought was requisite, if he did not think it was sufficient, he would add more than what you had actually contracted for; and if you refused to pay this, and you said, “I have not had but so much, I won’t pay it.” “Oh, won’t you; if you do not, here is your money, what you say it is; go out, and never come in here again.”

Have you known anybody refused employment because they would not contribute to the publican’s demand for drink?—Yes, I could find 50.

Who have lost their employment because they would not drink so much as the publican wished?—Yes, I could.

Could you not engage yourself to the captain of the ship without going to the publican?—No, for the publicans are some of them shipowners, and they are all intermixed through the trade by one thing and another, so that the captain or owner of the ship gives the favour to the publican to employ the whippers.

MR. CLAYDON, _Master of the Limehouse Workhouse, belonging to the
Stepney Union_.

With respect to the labouring classes, have you observed whether, with respect to any of them, these ill-regulated inclinations are subjected to unnecessary temptations?—The practice of paying men at public houses, and making the obtaining employment dependent in a certain measure upon drinking, which is the case with the coal-whippers.

Have you ever had occasion as respects the coal-whippers to investigate those cases?—We did at one period, having an opportunity, investigate upwards of 40 cases of coal-whippers.

Those were 40 applicants for relief?—The greater part of them were; 22 of them were in the immediate receipt of relief at the time the others were applicants.

What was the result in those cases?—We took their earnings over a considerable period, and we found that they had earned, taking the average, 18_s._ 10_d._ per week. The utmost we could make out that their families had received of that, in any shape, was 12_s._ 10_d._ per week. Whatever might have been their family, one-third of it had gone in drink and those charges which were brought against them.

Had any of those men earned more than that?—There were instances in which they had earned 20_s._ a-day.

And all came upon the pauper list just the same?—Yes, just as destitute as the rest, saving never seems to enter into their calculation at all.

Then with respect to this particular class, notwithstanding their earning wages twice as much as agricultural labourers earn probably, and which agricultural labourers save money, and are depositors in savings-banks, these men made no deposits, and no reserve, but the whole of them fall upon the rates? In one shape or other they receive the public charity, is that so?—Yes, in fact they have not the means possessed by other labourers, of pawning anything. I question whether you could find as much furniture in any one of their houses, as you could pawn for 2_s._ 6_d._

Not even in those cases where they are earning a guinea a-day?—No, they are all alike destitute, and their families look as dirty and as filthy, and are as ill-governed, and their houses are as destitute of furniture as those who earn the smaller sums, there is no difference; and in case of sickness they come at once upon the parish, unless they sometimes assist each other a little; but, however, they have no certain means at all but the parish. Their sicknesses are generally short. In most cases they are so ill prepared to bear sickness, that they are cut off very rapidly, and die comparatively young. I do not speak this from actual experience however.

Have you seen the cases of the widows, and the children coming in upon the parish?—Yes, we have 28 cases now. Our present numbers are 425 children, that is from the whole of the Union; there is only a small portion of the Union in the coal-whippers’ district, but we have 28 children directly belonging to them, some of them legitimate, and others illegitimate; all of that origin that we know decidedly that they are the produce of those coal-whippers.

Are the same observations as to the causes of the pauperism of the adults to be taken as to the causes of the pauperism of the children?—Yes. The observation is universal. The children cannot have produced it themselves, but they have the same habits and the same proneness to indulge the appetites, in fact I think there is a remarkable deficiency in the consideration of most parents, in that matter, even of respectable parents; they let their children go to the confectioners and buy drams, for they are drams in another form, peppermint and cloves, and so on, made up into articles of confectionary, and nothing is so likely to produce a depraved appetite, the transition is so natural from that to ardent spirit.

With respect to the residences of those classes, the coal-whippers especially, have you observed whether you have bad any cases of sickness arising from their state of filthiness, or traceable to it?—I do not know whether we can attribute it to that, but nothing can be more likely, although it is impossible to say, for the coal-whipper is very little at home, still nothing can be conceived more destitute, or more disgusting than their abodes.

What are the sorts of children you receive in the house from them with respect to training or education, that is, of those classes of coal-whippers?—They are completely uneducated; the generality of them are very untractable.

Allowed to run about wild?—Completely.

No care taken of them?—Not the ordinary care of cleanliness. I had three in last night, and notwithstanding all our anxiety after economy we were obliged to burn every rag of their clothes. To cleanse them was out of the question entirely; that is the case with half that come in to the workhouse.

_Mr. Sargeant_, the relieving officer of the same district.

Is it not your duty to visit the houses, and to inquire into the cases of applicants for relief? Yes, it is.

In doing so, you must trace the causes of the application for relief?—Yes.

What is the chief cause you find precede the application for relief?—Excessive drink.

In respect to those trammels which it is described that the coal-whippers are in, what is the consequence as to their households? how do you find, when you visit those cases, that their houses are provided?—I would rather sleep in my coal-hole than in any of their hovels. I went into six houses yesterday, each house contains four rooms, and in some of those houses there were 30 souls. In the least house there were 17.

How many sleep in the same room?—In one room there were four widows and two children, in the most wretched place imaginable.

Are quarrels between man and wife frequent?—Yes; through drink.

Are separations frequent? Yes; separations through drink on the part of the wife.

How many cases have you of wives separated from their husbands in the same way? I have had 15.

The wives, then, have imbibed the habits of the husbands? Yes.

Is there no cleanliness on a Sunday? Oh dear, no!

No attendance to church? No.

As to the children, what is their condition? The children of most abject wretchedness. Those poor children are sent out to scour the streets, to pick up and do anything else they can; and not particular to thieving.

What the condition of the girls?—The girls, when infants of seven years of age, are turned out into the streets with fruit and all sorts of things; when they arrive at the age of 14, go to stay stitching; then they sit in doors at home with their mother, and so on, until the age of 15 or 16, when they generally become prostitutes. I see it, because I am always amongst them. I have tried to get them to send those girls out to service, when they say, “Mr. Sargeant, what am I to do? my husband earns but little, I am obliged to depend upon what my daughter can do and myself.”

_Mr. Rooke_, the relieving officer of St. George’s in the East.

I know the poor population of our parish well. I know that a large proportion of the juvenile delinquents in our streets are coal-whippers’ children; I have known some of them to be transported. I know also that the girls, who are coal-whippers’ children, turn out prostitutes; it is seldom that any of them turn out to be good servants. Delirium tremens is a frequent complaint amongst the coal-whippers, and it sometimes extends to madness. There is one girl, for example, Margaret Harley, aged 25, the daughter of a coal-whipper, who, for the last 10 years, has always been either in a prison, in our workhouse, or the lunatic asylum; I do not believe that during that time she has been 10 months out of either of those places. I know a large proportion of the prostitutes in our district who, as the children of these improvident classes, have either been inmates of the house or otherwise chargeable to the public.

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Footnote 1:

The Commissioners have no money to remunerate physicians; and those
named should be distinctly informed that the service will be purely
honorary.

Footnote 2:

Vide Appendix C.

Footnote 3:

See the evidence on this subject taken before the Committee of the
House of Commons, on the sewerage of the metropolis; see also the
evidence of _Mr. Oldfield_, an extensive builder, _post_.

Footnote 4:

Vide the evidence of Mr. Dark and Mr. Treble, Appendix.

Footnote 5:

Mr. Smith, of Deanston, is of opinion that it would be practicable to
distribute such refuse by irrigation without exposure of the surface
of the fluid in which it is held in suspension.

Footnote 6:

Professor Liebig in his work on the “Chemistry of Agriculture,” refers
to various authorities on the practical value of such refuse, who
state that “human urine is, if possible, more husbanded by the Chinese
than night-soil for manure; every farm or patch of land for
cultivation has a tank, where all substances convertible into manure
are carefully deposited, the whole made liquid by adding urine in the
proportion required, and invariably applied in that state.” This is
exactly the process followed in the Netherlands.—See “Outlines of
Flemish Husbandry,” p. 22. “The business of collecting urine and
night-soil employs an immense number of persons, who deposit tubs in
every house in the cities for the reception of the urine of the
inmates, which vessels are removed daily with as much care as our
farmers remove their honey from the hives. When we consider the
immense value of night-soil as a manure, it is quite astounding that
so little attention is paid to preserve it. The quantity is immense
which is carried down by the drains in London to the river Thames,
serving no other purpose than to pollute its waters. A substance which
by its putrefaction generates miasmata may, by artificial means, be
rendered totally inoffensive, inodorous, and transportable, and yet
prejudice prevents these means being resorted to. If,” says the
professor, “we admit that the liquid and solid excrements of man
amount on an average to 1½ lb. daily (5/4 lb. of urine and ¼ lb.
fæces), and that both together contain 3 per cent. of nitrogen; then
in one year they will amount to 547 lbs., which contain 16·41 lbs. of
nitrogen, a quantity sufficient to yield the nitrogen of 800 lbs. of
wheat, rye, oats, or of 900 lbs. of barley.”—(Boussingault) “This is
much more than is necessary to add to an acre of land in order to
obtain, with the assistance of the nitrogen absorbed from the
atmosphere, the richest possible crop every year. Every town and farm
might thus supply itself with the manure which, besides containing the
most nitrogen, contains also the most phosphates, and if rotation of
the crops were adopted, they would be most abundant.”—Edited by Dr.
LYON PLAYFAIR.

Footnote 7:

See _post_.

Footnote 8:

Treatise on Road Formation and Cleansing.

Footnote 9:

See in the Appendix the form of calculation.

Footnote 10:

In Paris the greater proportion of the private houses are even now
supplied with water only by water-carriers, and the means of the
immediate conveyance of refuse, by a system of water-closets
communicating through drains to sewers to receptacles for use, could
not have been presented to the consideration of the men of science to
whom the subject was referred. It appears that in the first class of
houses in that city the cesspools were formerly only emptied once in
four or five years, and that it is now considered a great improvement
that they are emptied twice or thrice a-year. But the offensiveness
and the frequent injurious effects from emptying and removing the
contents, has led to the proposal of a plan of closed receptacles or
removable tanks, in which the soil maybe carted away to the place of
deposit for use as manure. The retention, however, of accumulations,
which can only be constantly removed by means of water, and the want
of proper supplies of water laid on in the houses very seriously
disparages the salubrity and habits of the population of that city, as
well as of the towns in this country where the same practice prevails.

Footnote 11:

Mr. John Martin, the artist, has endeavoured to direct public
attention to the sewerage of the metropolis, and proposed the erection
of a grand cloaca maxima, and various architectural works along the
Thames, with the meritorious objects of preventing the pollution of
the river, and saving the refuse. His plan was to form a canal on each
bank parallel to the river, so as to intercept the whole of the
sewerage, and convey it to large reservoirs or places of deposit at a
distance. His plan for the north bank was a canal, constructed of
iron, costing 60,000_l._ per mile, extending from Westminster to the
mouth of the Regent’s Canal, “where the grand receptacle should be
from which the soil should be conveyed to barges, and transmitted by
canals to various parts of the country.”—_Committee on Sewers’
Report_, p. 169. The primary objection to this plan is that it would
send the refuse still further out of the reach of large districts,
where it is wanted as manure, to a place where it would only be
available to the places for which canal conveyance would be
convenient; that it would leave untouched the great obstacle to the
use of manure, namely, the cost of removal and application by cartage
and hand labour. The construction of the canal would also involve the
disturbance of the whole of the wharf property; as originally
proposed, it involved their entire reconstruction, and the erection of
a grand colonnade along the banks of the river. For the removal of the
refuse, engineers of practical experience agree that the most eligible
plan was by various small conduits, not larger, where iron pipes might
be necessary, than the pipes used by the water companies in bringing
water into the metropolis, at a cost not a fifth, perhaps, of one
large canal, and without any disturbance of property. For the
application of the refuse as manure, practical experience at
Edinburgh, and of irrigation elsewhere, shows that the most effectual
mode of distribution for use is by water-meadows or drainage and
irrigation combined; forming an unseen, unostentatious, self-acting
system of excretory ducts, altogether superseding cartage or hand
labour, and conveying the refuse in closed streams, acting constantly
and rapidly until they distribute the refuse into the field of
production.

Footnote 12:

A litre is one pint and a twentieth.

Footnote 13:

The spread of the knowledge of the fact that animals are subject to
typhus consumption, and the chief of the train of disorders supposed
to be peculiarly human, will, it may be expected, more powerfully
direct attention to the common means of prevention. The following
extract from a report on the labours of the Board of Health at Paris
will show the effect of bad ventilation on cattle:—“The _epizootie_
are in many respects less serious than the epidemics; nevertheless, as
they often affect the animals which serve for the nutriment of man,
and that apart from this consideration they may have grave
consequences for the public health, they have constantly engaged the
care of the council. In 1834, an _epizootie_ was reported to the
administration which prevailed among the cows of the communes round
Paris, and which caused a great mortality. The researches of the
council established that this _epizootie_ was only a chronic disease,
a true pulmonary phthisis, to which has been given the name of
_pommelière_, and by which the greater part of the cows had been
attacked which fill the stables of the milkmen of Paris and its
environs. According to the council, the principal cause of the evil
was to be attributed to the vicious regimen to which this species of
animal is subjected. It is known that they pass a part of the year in
stables perfectly closed, in which the space is not proportioned to
the number of inmates, in which the vitiated air renews itself with
extreme difficulty, and in which the heat is sometimes suffocating. It
is known, also, that they pass suddenly from the food of the stable to
pasture, and that in this change they go from the hot and humid
atmosphere of the stable to a sudden exposure to the continual
variations of the external air. This alternation of food and of heat
and cold operates as a powerful cause of disease. But as the evil does
not announce itself in a violent manner, as its progress is not very
rapid, as there is even a period in the disease in which the animal is
disposed to get flesh, the cow-feeder, who knows to what point to keep
her, sells her when she is ready to calve. It is in a radius of 30
leagues from the capital that cows of this kind are purchased by the
jobbers, who supply the milkmen of Paris. With these last they still
hold out a certain number of years, if they are properly cared for,
but in general they are kept in stables which are neither sufficiently
large nor sufficiently airy, where they are exposed to the same causes
which gave birth to the malady. The phthisis arrives insensibly at its
last stage, and carries off every year from Paris and its
neighbourhood a great number of these cows.” A similar discovery was
only lately made as to the effect of defective ventilation on the
cavalry horses in some of the government barracks in England; and it
is stated, that a saving of several thousand pounds per annum was
effected by an easy improvement of the ventilation of the barracks
near the metropolis. An agriculturalist had a large number of sheep
housed to feed them on mangel wurzel, but a great number of them
sickened and died, and he declared that it was the food which had
killed them. A veterinary surgeon, however, who happened to be aware
of the consequences of defective ventilation, pointed out the
remedy,—a better ventilation for the sheep, which were overcrowded.
The defect was remedied; the sheep ate well, and throve upon the
mangel wurzel.

Footnote 14:

Vide extracts from the official report in the Appendix.

Footnote 15:

The following were the terms of our instructions to the district
medical commissioners of inquiry:—“A given amount of evil is
experienced by a class placed under peculiar circumstances; a large
portion of that evil is shared by other classes not under these
peculiar circumstances; to attribute the whole of the evil experienced
by the first class to those peculiar circumstances is obviously
fallacious. It is conceived that it is only by investigating the
subject with this precaution constantly in the mind that it is
possible to arrive at a just conclusion. While you carefully observe
the effects of labour on the children and the adult workpeople, and
report every case in which you conceive it to be excessive, and state
the reasons on which you ground that opinion, you are requested to
investigate minutely the concurrent causes of ill health. With this
view you are requested in every case to examine and report the state
of the drains in and about the factory: the state of the neighbourhood
of the factory as to dryness or dampness, cleanliness or filthiness:
the state of the houses and neighbourhood in which the children and
adult workpeople take their meals and exercise (if they leave the
factory), and where they sleep: the state of the air within the
factory, and which the workpeople usually respire, whether it be fresh
or whether it be not fresh, owing to deficient ventilation,—whether it
be pure, or whether it be rendered impure by effluvia floating in it,
and if so, what the effluvia are: what organs of the body are likely
to be injured, and what, from careful examination, you find to be
actually injured: the temperature of the air, the highest, the lowest,
and the average temperature, and the condition of the air as to
dryness or moisture.”

Footnote 16:

Rapport de la Commission des Epidémies de l’Académie Royale de
Médecine pour l’année 1839 et un partie d’ 1840. Par M. Brichetan,
Secrétaire Rapporteur de la Commission.

Footnote 17:

Vide Dr. Barham’s Report on Truro, Appendix.

Footnote 18:

These Tables are compiled from deaths which took place in Manchester
during the year 1840; in Leeds during the year 1840; in Liverpool
during the year 1840; in Bath during the year 1839; in Bethnal Green
during the year 1839; in the Strand union during the year 1840; in the
Kendal union during the year ended 30th September, 1841; in the county
of Wilts during the year 1840; and in Rutland during the three years
1838, 1839, and 1840.

Footnote 19:

A brief explanation of the construction of tables of mortality may be
desirable to prevent misapprehensions by those who are unacquainted
with the nature of such evidence. If amongst 4481 who die each year,
as at Leeds, it be found that altogether, man, woman, and child, they
have lived 92,734 years, that number equally divided, without
distinction of the old and young, gives 21 years as the _average
period of life_. The variations of such average periods, as shown by
the tables showing the mean periods of death of a whole population,
are deemed the best test of its condition and progress. The tables of
_proportional mortality_ are such as those of Liverpool, where, out of
223,054 inhabitants, 7435 die; that is to say, one-thirtieth of the
ascertained population are swept away every year. Such tables only
serve, however, for remote comparison of the condition of different
districts, for it will be perceived how large will be the different
conditions of two communities having exactly the same proportions of
mortality, but in one of which the deaths occur principally amongst
the infant population, and the other in which they occur amongst the
adults. Thus in all the parishes of Leeds, where the average age of
deaths of all who die is 21 years, since the deaths occur chiefly at
young ages amongst the labouring classes, the proportions of the
population who die annually is only 1 in 37. The average age of death,
or the average extent of life to every individual, may go on
increasing, and yet the proportions who die remain the same. Hence it
is that statistical returns of the proportions of death, which are so
generally used, are fundamentally unstable as means of ascertaining
the progressive sanitary condition of a population in different
countries. The _probabilities of life_ at different periods of life on
which insurance companies act, are determined by tables of a different
construction. To form a table of the probabilities of life at given
periods, in 1000 cases say, the date of the birth in each case is
ascertained, and observations are made of how many remain alive at the
end of each year at the different periods of life. From the different
ages at which that 1000 have died, it is held to be probable that
every other 1000 persons similarly circumstanced will die. The
observations on which tables of this description have been founded
have generally been from mixed classes differently circumstanced, and
no observations on a basis sufficiently large, that I am aware, have
been made to determine the probabilities of life to any one class of
workpeople, or to any one class of professional persons. The three
tables of the proportions of deaths at different ages would be of
little service to indicate the probability of life at different ages
unless we could ascertain with exactness the precise numbers of the
classes _living_ from which the deaths have occurred. More than half
the children of the working classes die, and only one-fifth of the
children of the gentry die, before the fifth year of age; and after
having attained that age, the _probabilities of life_ of the
labourer’s child might be greater than that of the child of the person
of the superior classes; but though we have other evidence that the
reverse is the case, we have not the evidence of well-constructed
tables of the probability of life at different periods strictly
applicable to that class. Though the proportions per cent. of those
who die in the higher and in the lower classes approximate in the
periods between 20 and 60 years of age, yet we know that the
probabilities of life in each class at each period are widely
different. The probable duration of life of a miner who had attained
40 years of age may not be, and we have reason to believe is not, half
that of the agricultural labourer, not one-third that of a person of
the higher ranks who had attained the same period.

Footnote 20:

It is the practice in Geneva for female servants to delay marriage
until they have saved enough to furnish a house, &c. In illustration
of this state of things it is stated that in 290 out of 956 marriages,
the female was at the time of marriage older than the male. With
further advances in prosperity, it is anticipated that age of marriage
would again diminish.

Footnote 21:

“Out of 100 deaths in the 16th century, 25·92 were children in their
first year; in the 17th century, 23·72; in the 18th century, 20·12; in
1801–13, they were 16·57; and in 1814–33, they were 13·85.” In
Liverpool, the number of children which in the year 1840 died under
one year of age was no less than 23 per cent., or what it was in
Geneva in the 17th century. In the county of Wilts where the
proportionate mortality is 1 in 58, the deaths of children in the
first year were 16 per cent. Dr. Griffin, in a report on the sanitary
condition of the population of Limerick, where the births appear to
bear such proportions to the marriages as they appear to have borne in
Geneva in the earliest periods, namely, of five children to a
marriage, and more in the worst-conditioned districts, makes an
important observation on the subject: “I find that as the poor nurse
their own children, there is in general an interval of about two years
between the birth of one child and that of the next; but if the child
dies early on the breast, this interval will be much shorter; and if
this occurs often, there will be a certain number born as it were _for
the purpose of dying_; and these being soon replaced, the same number
may still be preserved as if there had been few or no deaths, or only
the ordinary number.” Of these 55 per cent. died.

Footnote 22:

The registries in England at present supply no means of distinguishing
the migrant population who die in given places; and in each return a
small proportion of deaths have been omitted where the station of the
party has not been described; but taking as approximations the returns
of the ages of all who die, no district examined appears to present so
high a probability of life as at Geneva. The average age of all who
died in the respective periods before stated appear, from the returns
I have obtained, to be in the county of Rutland 39 years; in the
Kendal union 36; in the county of Wilts 35 years; in Bath 31; in the
Kensington union 30; in the Strand union 28; in the Whitechapel union
27; in Bethnal-green 21; in Leeds 21; in Manchester 20; in Bolton 19;
in Liverpool 17. By the Northampton Tables the probability of life in
infancy to all born was 25 years; in Carlisle it was 38.

Footnote 23:

Some constitutions are found which resist vaccine matter. Here and
there constitutions appear which resist all the noxious influences by
which they are surrounded, and attain extreme old age. Not
unfrequently we find the existence of these solitary individuals
referred to as proofs of the general salubrity of the very
circumstances under which generations have fallen and been buried
around them. It is a singular fact, as yet unexplained, that the
greatest proportion of centenarians are of the labouring classes; and
that instances of them have from time to time appeared amidst the
crowded populations in some of the worst neighbourhoods in London,
where the average duration of life is the lowest. It is remarked by
Mr. Mallet, that in Geneva extreme old age has not participated in the
prolongation of life which has taken place in the less advanced ages.
In the periods of from 60 to 70 years of age the amelioration is
inconsiderable; after 70 years there is no perceptible improvement;
after 80 years the aged have indeed a little less probability of life
at the present time than they had in the 16th century. Centenarians,
who were not rare in the 16th and 17th centuries, now disappear;
during the last 27 years Geneva has not produced a single one.

Footnote 24:

_Bibliothèque Universelle, September, 1831._

In Alexandria, which is a seat of pestilence, where the Arab
population leave the ordure before their doors (as we have seen large
classes of the lower population do in this country), where the dog is
the only scavenger of the animal refuse (as the pig is in many
districts in our towns), where those who have died of plague remain
unburied for days amidst the abodes of the living (as those who have
died of fever often do in the poorest districts in this
country),—there, under the more powerful action of a burning sun,
disease and death are proportionately rife; and, as shown by some
returns of death in 1841, out of a population of 60,000, the deaths
were 7,017 (of which 1,165 only were from plague), or more than
one-tenth of the population. It is known, however, that in the
well-cleansed and best streets, inhabited by the European and
fluctuating population, the proportion of mortality is not greater
than amidst a similar population in the towns of Europe; but it is
stated that the lower population, notwithstanding that it has been
decimated by the annual mortality, has, within the last quarter of a
century, more than doubled.

Footnote 25:

An English military officer, who has had much practice as an engineer,
and who has done much to protect the health of the population of one
of the South American towns, by drainage, whose opinion I took on the
efficiency of measures for cleansing inferior districts, recently
informed me that he should take advantage of a favourable change which
had occurred in one of the recent revolutions, to return to South
America, and try what he agreed was the most efficient course of
proceeding, commencing with the middle classes, by inducing the new
government to undertake works for bringing water into the houses of
the inhabitants, and adopt the self-acting system of cleansing the
poorest districts, and the use of the refuse for distant production,
on the principles established in this Report.

The authorities in Hamburgh have applied to Mr. Lindley, the engineer,
for a plan for the drainage of that town, and he has recommended for
adoption the same principles, and the application of the refuse for
agriculture, at a distance from the houses, instead of discharging it
into the water which washes the town.

Footnote 26:

Dr. Bisset Hawkins, the medical Commissioner in the Factory Inquiry,
stated in his Report, “I believe that most travellers are struck by
the lowness of stature, the leanness and paleness which present
themselves so commonly to the eye at Manchester, and above all, among
the factory classes. I have never been in any town in Great Britain
nor in Europe in which degeneracy of form and colour from the national
standard has been so obvious.” P. 6. From a return obtained in 1836
and presented to the Manchester Statistical Society, of the cattle
passing the toll-gates and the meat sold in the markets, it appeared
that the consumption exclusively amongst this population could not be
less than 105 lbs. each person annually, man, woman, and child, or 450
lbs. yearly per family of butchers’ meat alone, exclusively of bacon,
pork, fish, and poultry. The wretched personal appearance of this
population was only equalled by that of the Irish population of St.
Giles, where the man earned from 14_s._ or 16_s._ to 1_l._ per week,
(the wife and child earning something in addition,) but where it is
their habit to live chiefly on potatoes and use little meat. The
effect of a pure atmosphere, independently of diet, is shown in this
population when they go into the country during harvest time. After a
fortnight or three weeks’ absence, in which they will have had little
change of living, except, perhaps, taking less spirits, the whole
family return with the hue of health.

Footnote 27:

I have referred to the experience since the year 1801 in France, where
the registration of births amongst the migratory population of the
crowded districts, where the greatest mortality prevails, is likely to
have been as imperfect as in England, but that experience is, on the
whole, confirmatory, and proves that in the worst districts the births
still exceed the mortality.

┌─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┐ │ │ Increase of │Proportion of│Proportion of│ Excess of │ │ │Population in│Births in 35 │Deaths in 35 │ Births over │ │ │ 35 Years in │ Years to │ Years to │ Deaths in │ │ │every 10,000 │ 10,000 of │ 10,000 of │ 10,000 of │ │ │ Persons. │ Population. │ Population. │ Population. │ ├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤ │5 groups of │ │ │ │ │ │ departments│ 311│ 10,705│ 8,079│ 2,626│ │ of _lowest │ │ │ │ │ │ mortality_ │ │ │ │ │ │6 groups of │ │ │ │ │ │ departments│ 2,396│ 12,439│ 10,044│ 2,395│ │ of _mean │ │ │ │ │ │ mortality_ │ │ │ │ │ │6 groups of │ │ │ │ │ │ departments│ 4,190│ 13,024│ 12,350│ 674│ │ of _highest│ │ │ │ │ │ mortality_ │ │ │ │ │ └─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┘

Footnote 28:

In recruiting for the French army, the standard is now fixed at 1·566
metres of height, which is about 5 feet 1½ inches English.

Fifty years ago, however, the standard height was 5 feet 4 inches
English.

The English standard is for the Foot Guards 5 feet 6 inches.

lbs. avoirdupois.

The mean weight in Belgium (Brussels and environs)
of the man is 140·49

In France (Paris and the neighbourhood)
the man is 136·89

The mean weight of the Englishman (taken at
Cambridge), from 18 to 25 150·98

(In coaches it is usually considered that it
averages 165 lbs.)

The mean height of the Belgian male is 5 feet 6‑3/10 inches

The mean height of the Frenchman 5 feet 4 inches

The mean height of the Englishman 5 feet 9½ inches

(M. Quetelet and M. Villermé, on the authority of M. Tenon, Annuaire
de l’Obs. de Bruxelles, 1836.)

Footnote 29:

The diseases included under “Other Diseases,” include the deaths
registered from a number of miscellaneous causes too numerous to be
specified in the table.

Footnote 30:

Where so much independent provision is made, as by clubs, only a part
of the consequences of premature deaths appear on the poor’s roll. The
population of Camborne is less exclusively mining than is Gwennap; but
the records of pauperism in the office afford marks of a general
difference in the condition of the population of the two parishes.

┌────────┬───────────────────┬────────────────────┬───────────────────┐ │ │ │Ratio of Widows and │ │ │ │Ratio of Paupers to│Women whose Husbands│Cost of Relief per │ │Parish. │ the whole │have deserted them, │ Head on the whole │ │ │ Population. │or are transported, │ Population. │ │ │ │ to the whole │ │ │ │ │ Population. │ │ ├────────┼───────────────────┼────────────────────┼─────────┬─────────┤ │ │ │ │ _s._ │ _d._ │ │Gwennap │ 1 in 25 │ 1 in 186 │3 │2 │ │Illogan │ 1 in 35 │ 1 in 346 │2 │2¾ │ │Camborne│ 1 in 34 │ 1 in 401 │2 │4¾ │ └────────┴───────────────────┴────────────────────┴─────────┴─────────┘

Footnote 31:

I am informed that regulations on the principle of those we
recommended, under the Factory Commission for the Protection of Adult
Workmen from the consequences of Accidents, are now adopted in the
Prussian code, and practically enforced.

Footnote 32:

An Act made in Ireland the 3rd year of his present Majesty “for better
preventing the severities, &c., has the following clause:—“Whereas
many infectious disorders are daily produced by the confinement of
numbers in close prisons, whereunto there is no back-yard adjoining,
and the lives of his majesty’s subjects are endangered by the bringing
of prisoners into public streets for air; be it enacted—That every
grand jury at the assizes or quarter sessions may be enabled, and they
are hereby required and directed to contract either by lease, or to
purchase a piece of ground next adjoining the gaol, or as near as
conveniently can be had thereto, and cause to be erected necessary
houses, and a wall sufficient for the security of the said
prisoners.””

Footnote 33:

Thirty-three males who were imprisoned for six months gained 37 lbs.
total weight; five females gained 19 lbs.; twenty-two males, confined
during twelve months, gained 3 lbs.; eight females, during the same
period, gained 5 lbs.; seven males in eighteen months gained 24 lbs.;
and two females 10 lbs. At Edinburgh also they were weighed, and, on
the whole, they gained. See Appendix, statement of the periods of
confinement and weight of prisoners at the commencement and
termination of their imprisonment.

Footnote 34:

It is observed by Dr. Wilson, in reference to the mortality in the
navy, that “the mortality from wounds is inconsiderable compared with
that occasioned by disease. Much misconception has prevailed on this
subject in the public mind. Deaths in action, by the general
excitement attending them, from being published in official despatches
and perpetuated in gazettes, make more than a due impression; for it
is found, when accurately reckoned, that they are few in comparison
with those resulting from ordinary diseases. Sir G. Blane, when
writing under the common impression, and without the corrections of
figures, alleges that half the mortality in war periods is
attributable to wounds received in battle and other external causes;
but he gives a very different account when he dismisses
unauthenticated notions to deal with numerical facts. He then states,
that from 1780 till 1783, though in that period, besides single
actions, engagements with forts, &c., the great battle of the 12th of
April was fought, the mortality from disease, compared with that from
external causes, was as 3 to 1; in 1779, according to his statement,
the former was to the latter as 8 to 1.” During the last 41 months of
the peninsular war, whilst 24,930 privates died of disease, only 8899
died of wounds, or were killed in battle. The deaths during the
campaign were,—of the privates in battle, 4·2 per cent.; of disease,
11·9 per cent.: of officers, in battle, 6·6 per cent.; of disease, 3·7
per cent. per annum. The average deaths in four battles, Talavera,
Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo, were 3·9 per cent. of officers,
2·11 of privates. In the peninsular war there were generally 22½ per
cent. of men absent on account of sickness; and a reduction of the
proportions of sick to 6 per cent. would have set free 10,000 men from
the hospitals to be added to the effective force of the
army.—_Official Returns._ The highest increased charge for insurance
of military men during the peninsular campaign was 10 guineas per
cent. The extra premiums taken on the insurance of military lives on
service in India and China are from 3 to 5 guineas per cent.,
governed, however, by the unfavourable chances of the climate to which
the campaign leads, as well as by the increased risks from battle. The
extra premiums on naval officers in hostile service is usually from 3
to 5 guineas per cent., governed by the consideration of the climate.

Footnote 35:

_Vide_ Appendix for estimate and detailed specification. From some
recent experiments made with the egg-shaped sewers or main drains, it
appears that drains of sufficient size might be made at one-third less
than the price for sewers in the annexed estimate. In many instances,
main drains costing one-half the sum would suffice.

Footnote 36:

As an instance of the little account the manufacturing workpeople have
made of such charges, it is mentioned by Sir Charles Shaw that, on the
introduction of the new police force into Manchester, he found the
workpeople in the habit of paying 6_d._ per week each to the old watch
for calling them up. He put a stop to the practice, as being one which
interfered with the regular duties of the police, and as being founded
on a habit which might be corrected. The employers, however,
complained of the interruption of the practice, and requested that it
might be renewed. Sir Charles, considering that 6_d._ was too high a
charge, offered to allow the police to call up the workpeople at 2_d._
per week each, provided the masters, to save the trouble of the weekly
collection, deducted the amount from the weekly wages, and paid it
over to the police fund. The answer to the proposal was, that the
workpeople would sooner pay 6_d._ of their own accord than have 1_d._
deducted from their wages by their masters.

Footnote 37:

The experience of France is precisely similar. In a work of great
authority on the lower classes of that country, it is stated that the
secret of the existence of so many filthy, infected, and miserable
habitations, is simply that the persons who pay two sous for their
lodging at night spend ten sous on brandy by day.

Footnote 38:

A butter merchant informed me that the value of the Irish butter was
deteriorated to a greater extent than they were aware of, from its
being frequently made in close smoky hovels instead of in clean and
well-ventilated dairies, as in England.

Footnote 39:

In an inquiry, from house to house, into the condition of the
labouring population in the parishes of St. Margaret and St. John
Westminster, it was found that, out of a total of 5366 houses, 2352
were occupied for terms under one year, and that no less than 1834 had
been occupied during periods from one to six months only.

Footnote 40:

It appears that the mortality for five years, ending 1839, was in
Catrine 1 to 54.20, whilst in Glasgow for the same period it was 1 to
31.

Footnote 41:

Mohl. Polizei-Wissenschaft, vol. i. page 135, Note.

Footnote 42:

“Or shall on the said bridge, or in any street or place within the
distance aforesaid (all the legislation was restricted to “fifty
yards”) from either end thereof, hoop, fire, cleanse, wash, or scald
any cask or tub; or hew, saw, or cut any stone, wood or timber; or
bore any timber; or make or repair, or wash or clean any coach,
chaise, waggon, sledge or other carriage, or the wheel, body, springs,
or other part of any coach, chaise, waggon, sledge, or other carriage
(except such as may want immediate repair from any sudden accident on
the spot, and which cannot be conveniently removed for that purpose);
or wet, slack, or mix any lime; or wet, mix or make any mortar; or
shoe, bleed, or farry any horse or other beast, unless in case of
sudden accident; or clean, dress, drive, or turn loose any horse, or
other beast, or cattle; or show or expose any stallion or stonehorse;
or show or expose, or exercise or expose to sale any horse or other
beast; or kill or slaughter, or scald, singe, dress or cut up any
animal, either wholly or in part; or cause or permit any blood to run
from any slaughter-house, butcher’s-shop or shamble into any of the
streets or places within the distance aforesaid from the said bridge;
or shall sell or assist in selling by auction or public sale, any
cattle, goods, wares, merchandize, or thing or things whatsoever; or
hang up or expose to sale, or cause or permit to be hanged up, placed
or exposed to sale, any goods, wares, or merchandize whatever, or any
fruit, vegetables, or garden-stuff, butchers’ meat, or other matter or
thing upon the said bridge; or in, or upon, or so as to project over
or upon the footway or carriage-way of the said streets or places
within the distance aforesaid, or beyond the line, or on the outside
of the window or windows of the house, shop, or place at which the
same shall be so hanged up, placed, or exposed to sale, or so as to
obstruct or incommode the passage of any person or carriage: or leave
open after sunset the door or window of any cellar, or other
underground room or apartment, without having placed or left a
sufficient light therein to warn and prevent persons passing in the
streets and public places within the distance aforesaid from the said
bridge, from falling into such cellars or other underground rooms or
apartments; or bait, or cause to be baited any bull or other animal;
or throw at any cock or fowl in the manner called cock-throwing, or
set up any fowl to be thrown at in such manner; or play at foot-ball,
or at any other game on the said bridge, or within such distance as
aforesaid, to the annoyance of any inhabitant or inhabitants, or
passenger or passengers,” * * * * “or wilfully permit or suffer any
horse, or other beast or cattle which such person may be riding or
driving, or leading, to go thereon; or shall tie or fasten any horse
or other cattle to any house, wall, fence, post, tree, or other thing
whatsoever, across any of the highways, footways, or foot-pavements of
the said bridge, or within the distance aforesaid.”

Footnote 43: