Chapter XIX: Appendix (9)

The close pent up air in these abodes has, undoubtedly, a depressing effect on the nervous energies, and this again, with the uneducated, and indeed with many of the educated workpeople, has an effect on the moral habits by acting as a strong and often irresistible provocative to the use of fermented liquors and ardent spirits. Much may be due to the incitement of association of greater numbers of people, but it is a common fact that, the same workpeople indulge more in drink when living in the close courts and lanes of the town than when living in the country, and that the residence in the different places is attended with a difference of effects similar to those described in respect to the tailors working in crowded rooms in towns and the tailors working separately or in the country. The workpeople who have fallen into habits of drinking, strenuously allege the impossibility of avoiding the practice in such places; they do, however, drink in greater quantities in such places, and give increased effect to the noxious miasma by which they are surrounded.

Some inquiries from _Mr. Liddle_, the medical officer of the Whitechapel union, as to the condition of the workpeople he visited in such places as he has described, brought to notice another indirect effect of the external as well as the internal condition of the dwelling on their domestic economy and general condition.

It appeared that the persons whom he visited for the purpose of administering medical relief, were men earning, when in work, from 16_s._ to 20_s._ per week, the women earning proportionably. Yet whenever they were subjected to the frequent attacks of sickness which prevailed amongst them, they were in the most, wretched destitution: the house was bare of everything; they had no provisions and no credit, and their need for relief was most imminent. In answer to the inquiry how this was to be accounted for, inasmuch as with agricultural labourers who earned little more than half that sum, and paid nearly as much for their food, in visiting their cottages with their ministers, I had commonly observed some store of provisions; Mr. Liddle stated that in such places as those in his district, in such atmospheres, a store of provisions would not keep: everything decayed rapidly, and the workpeople consequently lived “from hand to mouth.” On inquiring as to this fact from a respectable butcher, accustomed to sell meat to persons living in such situations, he stated that—

“Meat sold on a Saturday night, in hot weather, to poor people, who
have only one close room, in which they sleep, and live, and cook,
will certainly turn before the Sunday morning; when, if it were kept
in the butcher’s shop, or in a well-ventilated place, it would be in
as good a condition on the Monday morning. There is a great deal of
loss of meat in consequence of the want of ventilation and bad
condition of the dwellings of the poorer classes. The butter kept in
such places sooner becomes rancid, and the bread dry and
disagreeable.”

Here, then, we have from the one agent, a close and polluted atmosphere, two different sets of effects; the one set here noticed engendering improvidence, expense, and waste,—the other, the depressing effects of external and internal miasma on the nervous system, tending to incite the habitual use of ardent spirits; both tending to precipitate this population into disease and misery.

The familiarity with the sickness and death constantly present in the crowded and unwholesome districts, appears to re-act as another concurrent, cause in aggravation of the wretchedness and vice in which they are plunged. Seeing the apparent uncertainty of the morrow, the inhabitants really take no heed of it, and abandon themselves with the recklessness and avidity of common soldiers in a war to whatever gross enjoyment comes within their reach. All the districts I visited, where the rate of sickness and mortality was high, presented, as might be expected, a proportionate amount of severe cases of destitute orphanage and widowhood; and the same places were marked by excessive recklessness of the labouring population. In Dumfries, for example, it is estimated, that the cholera, swept away one-eleventh part of the population. Until recently, the town had not recovered the severe effects of the visitation, and the condition of the orphans was most deplorable. Amongst young artisans who were earning from 16_s._ to 18_s._ a-week, I was informed that there were very few who made any reserves against the casualties of sickness. I was led to ask the provost what number of bakers’ shops there were? “Twelve,” was his answer. And what number of whiskey-shops may the town possess? “Seventy-nine” was the reply. If we might rely on the inquiries made of working-men when Dr. Arnott and I went through the wynds of Edinburgh, their consumption of spirits bore almost the like proportion to the consumption of wholesome food. We observed to Captain Stuart, the superintendent of the police at Edinburgh, in our inspection of the wynds, that life appeared to be of little value, and was likely to be held cheap in such spots. He stated, in answer, that a short time ago a man had been executed for the murder of his wife in a fit of passion in the very room we had accidentally entered, and where we were led to make the observation. At a short distance from that spot, and amidst others of this class of habitation, were those which had been the scenes of the murders by Burke and Hare. Yet amidst these were the residences of working men engaged in regular industry. The indiscriminate mixture of workpeople and their children in the immediate vicinity, and often in the same rooms with persons whose character was denoted by the question and answer more than once exchanged, “When were you last washed?” “When I was last in prison,” was only one mark of the entire degradation to which they had been brought. The working-classes living in these districts were equally marked by the abandonment, of every civil or social regulation. Asking some children in one of the rooms of the wynds in which they swarmed in Glasgow what were their names, they hesitated to answer, when one of the inmates said, they called them ——, mentioning some nicknames. “The fact is,” observed Captain Miller, the superintendent of the police, “they really have no names. Within this range of buildings I have no doubt I should be able to find a thousand children who have no names whatever, or only nicknames, like dogs.” There were found amidst the occupants, labourers earning wages undoubtedly sufficient to have paid for comfortable tenements, men and women who were intelligent, and so far as could be ascertained, had received the ordinary education which should have given better tastes and led to better habits. My own observations have been confirmed by the statement of Mr. Sheriff Alison, of Glasgow, that in the great manufacturing towns of Scotland, “in the contest with whiskey, in their crowded population, education has been entirely overthrown.” The ministers, it will be seen, make similar reports from the rural districts. On the observation of other districts, and the comparison of the habits of the same workmen in town and country, it will be seen that I consider that the use of the whiskey and the prostration of the education and moral habits for which the Scottish labourers have been distinguished is, to a considerable extent, attributable to the surrounding physical circumstances, including the effects of the bad ventilation. The labourers presented to our notice in the condition described, in the crowded districts, were almost all Scotch. It is common to ascribe the extreme of misery and vice wholly to the Irish portion of the population of the towns in Scotland. A short inspection on the spot would correct this error. Mr. Baird, in his report on the sanitary condition of the poor of Glasgow, observes that “the bad name of the poor Irish had been too long attached to them.” Dr. Cowan, of Glasgow, stated that “From ample opportunities of observation, they appeared to him to exhibit much less of that squalid misery and addiction to the use of ardent spirits than the Scotch of the same grade.” Instances were indeed stated to us, where the Irish were preferred for employment from their superior steadiness and docility; and Mr. Stuart, the Factory Inspector for Scotland, states, that “instances are now occurring of a preference being given to them as workers in the flax factories on account of their regular habits, and that very significant hints have been given by extensive factory owners, that Irish workmen will be selected unless the natives of the place, and other persons employed by them, relinquish the prevailing habits of intemperance.” Dr. Scott Alison, in his report on Tranent, has described the population in receipt of high wages, but living under similar influences, as prone to passionate excitement, and as apt instruments for political discontents; their moral perceptions appeared to have been obliterated, and they might be said to be characterised by a “ferocious indocility which makes them prompt to wrong and violence, destroys their social nature, and transforms them into something little better than wild beasts.”

It is to be regretted that the coincidence of pestilence and moral disorder is not confined to one part of the island, nor to any one race of the population. The overcrowding and the removal of what may be termed the architectural barriers or protections of decency and propriety, and the causes of physical deterioration in connexion with the moral deterioration, are also fearfully manifest in the districts in England, which, at the time to which the evidence refers, were in a state of prosperity.

_Mr. Baker_, in his report on the condition of the population, after giving an instance of the contrast presented by the working people living in better dwellings, situated in better cleansed neighbourhoods (to which I shall advert when submitting the evidence in respect to preventive measures), describes the population living in houses—

“With broken panes in every window-frame, and filth and vermin in
every nook. With the walls unwhitewashed for years, black with the
smoke of foul chimneys, without water, with corded bed-stocks for
beds, and sacking for bed-clothing, with floors unwashed from year to
year, without out-offices, * * * * while without, there are streets,
elevated a foot, sometimes two, above the level of the causeway, by
the accumulation of years, and stagnant puddles here and there, with
their fœtid exhalations, causeways broken and dangerous, ash-places
choked up with filth, and excrementitious deposits on all sides as a
consequence, undrained, unpaved, unventilated, uncared-for by any
authority but the landlord, who weekly collects his miserable rents
from his miserable tenants.

“Can we wonder that such places are the hot-beds of disease, or that
it obtains, upon constitutions thus liberally predisposed to receive
it, and forms the mortality which Leeds exhibits. Adult life, exposed
to such miasmata, gives way. How much more then infant life, when
ushered into, and attempted to be reared in, such obnoxious
atmospheres. On the moral habits similar effects are produced. An
inattention on the part of the local authorities to the state of the
streets diminishes year by year the respectability of their occupiers.
None dwell in such localities but to whom propinquity to employment is
absolutely essential. Those who might advocate a better state of
things, depart; and of those who remain, the one-half, by repeated
exhibitions of indecency and vulgarity, and indeed by the mere fact of
neighbourship, sink into the moral degradation which is natural to the
other, and vicious habits and criminal propensities precede the death
which these combinations prepare.”

No education as yet commonly given appears to have availed against such demoralizing circumstances as those described; but the cases of moral improvement of a population, by cleansing, draining, and the improvement of the internal and external conditions of the dwellings, of which instances will be presented, are more numerous and decided, though there still occur instances of persons in whom the love of ardent spirits has gained such entire possession as to have withstood all such means of retrieving them. The most experienced public officers acquainted with the condition of the inferior population of the towns would agree in giving the first place in efficiency and importance to the removal of what may be termed the physical barriers to improvement, and that as against such barriers moral agencies have but a remote chance of success.

A gentleman who has had considerable experience in the management of large numbers of the manufacturing population stated to me that in every case of personal and moral improvement the successful step was made by the removal of the party from the ill-conditioned neighbourhood in which he had been brought up. When a young workman married, he interfered to get him a better residence apart from the rest; and when this was done important alterations followed; but if he took up his abode in the old neighbourhood, the condition of the wife was soon brought down to the common level, and the marriage became a source of wretchedness.

Benevolent persons, viewing the bare aspect of some of the most afflicted neighbourhoods, have raised subscriptions for the purchase of furniture, bedding, and blankets, for the relief of the inmates, but by this pecuniary aid they have only added fuel to the flame; that is, they have enabled the inmates to purchase more ardent spirits. The force of the habit, which is aggravated by misdirected charity, is indicated in the following instances, of which one was mentioned to me by the _Rev. Whitwell Elwin_:—

“I was lately informed by a master tailor of Bath that one of his men,
who had earned 3_l._ a-week at piece-work for years, had never within
his knowledge possessed table, chairs, or bedding. I found the
statement on examination to be strictly true. Some straw on which he
slept, a square block of wood, a low three-legged stool, and an old
tea-caddy, are the complete inventory of the articles of a room, the
occupier of which, with only himself and his wife to maintain, was
wealthier than many in the station of gentlemen. He had frequently
excited lively compassion in benevolent individuals, who, supposing
that he was struggling for very existence, furnished him with a
variety of household goods, which were regularly pawned before a week
was out, and afforded to the superficial observer fresh evidence of
the extremity of his distress. The cause of all this is quickly told:
the wife was to be seen going to and fro several times a-day with a
cream-jug of gin, and to gratify this appetite, they had voluntarily
reduced themselves to the condition of savages. I could add numerous
instances of a similar kind. Indeed, were a stranger to go through the
town, and judge only from the appearance of things, I am convinced
that he would select his examples of greatest privation not from the
really poor, but from men who were in the receipt of more than 30_s._
a-week. Charity, which when prompted by pure motives, always blesses
him that gives, does not always bless him that takes. I am afraid that
the indiscriminate adoption of dirt and rags as a test of poverty,
especially in a town like Bath, where private charity prevails on an
extensive scale, operates as a premium upon ill habits, and as a
discouragement to cleanliness, and leads many to affect a vice which
was not habitual to them.”

As an instance of that state of voluntary wretchedness which renders all such charity or assistance worse than useless, I may give an incident mentioned to me by _Sir Charles Shaw_, the chief commissioner of the new police force in Manchester:—

“A week since,” says Sir Charles, “I sent an inspector of police to
examine a lodging-house. He came back to state that he had never
witnessed such a sight. He found in one room, totally destitute of
furniture, three men and two women lying on the bare floor, without
straw, and with bricks only for their pillows. I observed, that I
supposed they were drunk. ‘Yes,’ said the inspector; ‘they were, and I
found the lodging-house keeper himself in a tolerable bed, and in
another room I found bundles of fine fresh straw. I blamed the man for
not giving that straw to his lodgers.’ He answered, ‘I keep that straw
for the people who prefer purchasing it to gin: those above stairs
preferred the gin.’ It is, I find, a common thing here for
lodging-house keepers to have straw for sale.”

In the course of an examination which I took, under the Poor Law Commission of Inquiry, from the late _Mr. Walker_, the stipendiary magistrate of the Thames Police Office, he observed, in respect to cases of apparent destitution:—

“Casualties occurring among the indigent or profligate are at all
times liable to be represented as cases resulting from the neglect of
the proper authorities. Some time ago, in going round the parish of
Whitechapel with the churchwardens, during service-time, we entered an
old building in Rosemary-lane, for which there was then no owner, the
stairs were so dark and ruinous that though it was mid-day we were
obliged to have a candle, to enable us to go up to them: the
first-floor was the receptacle of every description of filth. We
entered one room, in which we found two half-naked dirty children;
their mother lay in one corner on some dirty straw, covered only with
a sack. There was no furniture nor other articles in the place, except
a fagot of wood and a few broken plates, a basket of skate, and some
sprats strewed on the floor. This woman was a fish-hawker, a business
by which, in all probability, she gained enough to have made her
extremely comfortable, but she preferred an alternation of great
privation and profligate enjoyment. Had she accidentally died in this
state, here would have been a scene of misery, and a case of
excitement for the philanthropists! In our district there are other
premises under similar circumstances, all of which are tenanted by
persons of the very lowest grade; and it is surprising, considering
the state in which they live, that unaccountable deaths, having the
semblance of starvation, do not take place amongst them. From what I
have observed of these places, I am fully convinced that if shambles
were built on any spot, and all who choose were allowed to occupy
them, they would soon be occupied by a race lower than any yet known.
I have often said that if empty casks were placed along the streets of
Whitechapel, in a few days each of them would have a tenant, and these
tenants would keep up their kind, and prey upon the rest of the
community. I am sure that if such facilities were offered, there is no
conceivable degradation to which portions of the species might not be
reduced. Allow these tub-men no education, and you would have so many
savages living in the midst of civilization. Wherever there are empty
houses which are not secured, they are soon tenanted by wretched
objects, and these tenants continue so long as there is a harbour for
them. Parish officers and others come to me to aid them in clearing
such places. I tell the police and the parish that there is no use in
their watching these places, that they must board them up if they
would get rid of the occupants. If they will give the accommodation
they will get the occupants. If you will have marshes and stagnant
waters you will there have suitable animals, and the only way of
getting rid of them is by draining the marshes.”

The _Reverend Whitwell Elwin_ observes upon this subject that—

“Those who think that labourers will work for themselves a reform in
their habitations very much underrate the effects of habit. A person
accustomed to fresh air, and all the comforts of civilized life, goes
into a miserable room, dirty, bare, and, above all, sickening from the
smell. Judging from his own sensations, he conceives that nothing but
the most abject poverty could have produced this state of things, and
he can imagine nothing necessary to a cure but a way for escape. A
very simple experiment will correct these erroneous impressions. Let
him remain a short time in the room, and the perception of closeness
will so entirely vanish that he will almost fancy that the atmosphere
has been purified since his entrance. There are few who are not
familiar with this fact; and if such are the effects of an hour in
blunting our refined sensations, and rendering them insensible to
noxious exhalations, what must be the influence of years on the
coarser perceptions of the working-man?

“All who know the lower classes will testify that the last want felt
by the dirty is cleanliness, that their last expenditure is on the
comforts of their home. Two winters ago I found a painter whose bed
was without blankets, whose room was without furniture, who was
destitute even of the ordinary utensils of civilized life, whose floor
was covered with worse filth than that of the streets—I found this man
at dinner with a roast loin of pork stuffed with onions, a Yorkshire
pudding, a large jug of ale, cheese, and a salad. I will undertake to
say that half the gentlemen in Bath did not sit down on that Sunday to
so good a dinner.”

A number of communications simply assign “intemperance” as the cause of fever, and of the prevalent mortality. Of most of these communications, which it were unnecessary to recite, it may be observed, that when intemperance is mentioned as the cause of disease, as being the immediate antecedent, on carrying investigation a little further back, discomfort is found to be the immediate antecedent to the intemperance; and where the external causes of positive discomfort do not prevail in the towns, the workpeople are generally found to have few or no rival pleasures to wean them from habits of intemperance, and to have come from districts subject to the discomforts likely to engender them. In one of the returns from Scotland it is observed that with the people, whether for a fever, a cold, or consumption, or a pleurisy, whiskey is the universal antidote. The popular belief that fermented liquor or ardent spirits are proper antidotes to the effects of damp or cold has been universal, and has not wanted even medical sanction. Out-door allowances of beer have been prescribed by some medical officers in marshy and undrained districts as the proper preservatives against ague or rheumatism. The Board will now be in a position to urge the importance of facilitating drainage as a means for the protection of the population by the prevention of disease and the inducement to pernicious habits, as well as a source of profitable industry. It is now beginning to be observed in several dangerous occupations that temperance is the best means of withstanding the effects of the noxious agencies which they have to encounter. Amongst the painters, for example, the men who are temperate and cleanly suffer little from the occupation, but if any one of them become intemperate, the noxious causes take effect with a certainty and rapidity proportioned to the relaxed domestic habits. The Inquiry presents many instances of the beneficial effects of the changes of the popular habit of having recourse to fermented liquors or to spirits as necessary protective stimulants. In several of the mining districts, for example, it is an extensive practice to provide for the accommodation of the miners out of the hot mines a room in which they may drink beer as a preservative against the effects of the change to the cold and damp air to which they are about to expose themselves. _Dr. Barham_, in his Report to the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Employment of Young Persons in Mines and Manufactories, notices an admirable example within the province of voluntary exertion, and the beneficial effects produced by it at the Dolcoath copper and tin mine, Camborne, Cornwall. There the proprietors, besides establishing other easy and economical preventive arrangements, provide a warm room for the miners to change their dresses and take hot meat-soup, which is cheaper, probably, than beer. “And the men” (says a witness) “say they never feel cold when they take it. We conceive that there have been much fewer cases of consumption on the club since this practice has been adopted.”

The effects of the noxious physical agencies on the moral condition of the population will receive more full illustration in connexion with the statistical evidence as to their effects, with the evidence on the practical operation of the means of prevention.

_Domestic mismanagement, a predisposing cause of disease._

The subsequent examples relate chiefly to the effects of general domestic mismanagement as a concurrent cause of disease.

_Dr. Baker_, in his report on the sanitary condition of the population of Derby, states that—

“There is also another cause of sickness to be found in their houses,
and which, like the former, _i. e._, the external circumstances, is in
constant operation: I mean the want of domestic comforts, a want which
the wages they earn would, in many instances, enable them to remove if
their means were not, as too often happens, expended viciously or
improvidently. It is with regret that I speak unfavourably of the
poor, whilst my whole aim, in this communication, has been to awaken a
sympathy towards those sufferings of which I have been so often a
witness. But several years’ experience of the habits of the poor,
derived from my situation as an hospital physician, and backed by the
additional evidence I have obtained by acting for three years as a
guardian of the poor in this large town, has, I am sorry to say,
served but to confirm me in the opinion I have just now expressed; and
in support of which I shall instance the family of the Slaters
mentioned at No. 12, in Short-street.

“The earnings of four members of this family were as follows:—

_s._ _d._ The father 14 0 per week, at gardening, &c. The eldest son, aged 20 12 0 per week, at a brewery. Daughter {Twins, } 6 0 per week, at a factory. Son {aged 18} 9 0 per week, at the same factory. —— —— — £2 1 0 per week.

“The mother of this family, it appears, is left disengaged from all
but her household duties and the care of the younger children; the
house, nevertheless, is nearly destitute of furniture, and presents a
picture of disorder and want. On the other hand, at No. 15, (Briggs)
although the husband has for some years past been a weak and ailing
man, the family is well ordered and cleanly; and to this fact I mainly
attribute the milder and modified form of fever which affected the
children.”

The Committee of Physicians and Surgeons at Birmingham, in their report, indicate the powerful operation of depraved domestic habits as a predisposing cause to disease:—

“It cannot,” they say, “be doubted that whilst the arts and
manufactures of the place prove in some instances injurious to health,
and in a few possibly destructive to life, these evil consequences, as
well as hereditary predisposition to disease, are promoted by
intemperance, not that intemperance is an infinitely more frequent
cause of disease and death amongst the artisans than all the various
employments of all the manufactories combined.

“In the expenditure of their weekly earnings, improvidence and
thoughtless extravagance prevail to a lamentable degree. The
observations upon which this opinion is formed are made upon the
habits of the people themselves, confirmed by extensive and recent
inquiries among the shopkeepers with whom they deal. Tea, coffee,
sugar, butter, cheese, bacon, (of which a great deal is consumed in
this town,) and other articles, the working people purchase in small
quantities from the hucksters, who charge an enormous profit upon
them, being, as they state, compelled to do so to cover the losses
which they frequently sustain by bad debts. Huckster dealing is a most
extravagant mode of dealing; there were in this town, in 1834, 717 of
these shops, and the number has greatly increased since that time.
Meat is purchased in the same improvident manner; the working men
generally contrive to have a good joint of meat upon the Sunday; the
dinner on the other days of the week is made from steaks or chops,
which is the most extravagant mode either of purchasing or cooking
meat.

“The improvidence of this class of persons arises in many instances
from the indulgence of vicious propensities. Drunkenness, with all its
attendant miseries, prevails to a great extent, though it is by no
means to be regarded as a characteristic feature of the mechanic of
this town in particular. It most generally prevails among that class
of workmen who obtain the highest wages, but who are often found in
the most deplorable and abject condition. The improvidence of which we
are speaking is to be traced in very many instances to extreme
ignorance on the part of the wives of these people. The females are
from necessity bred up from their youth in the workshops, as the
earnings of the younger members contribute to the support of the
family. The minds and morals of the girls become debased, and they
marry totally ignorant of all those habits of domestic economy which
tend to render a husband’s home comfortable and happy; and this is
very often the cause of the man being driven to the alehouse to seek
that comfort after his day of toil which he looks for in vain by his
own fireside. The habit of a manufacturing life being once established
in a woman, she continues it, and leaves her home and children to the
care of a neighbour or of a hired child, sometimes only a few years
older than her own children, whose services cost her probably as much
as she obtains for her labour. To this neglect on the part of their
parents is to be traced the death of many children; they are left in
the house with a fire before they are old enough to know the danger to
which they are exposed, and are often dreadfully burnt.”

_Mr. Mott’s_ report on the sanitary condition of the population of his district presents parallel instances of the different economy prevalent amongst these classes:—

_Contrast in the Economy of Families._

1. 1.

Cellar in Wellington-court, In a dwelling-house in Chorlton Chorlton-upon-Medlock; a man, his Union, containing one sitting-room wife and seven children; income per and two bed-rooms; a man, his wife week, 1_l._ 11_s._; rent 1_s._ and three children; rent 2_s._ 6_d._ per week; three beds for 6_d._ per week; income per week seven, in a dark, unventilated back 12_s._ 6_d._, being an average of room, bed-covering of the meanest 2_s._ 6_d._ per week for each and scantiest kind—the man and wife person. Here, with a sickly man, occupying the front room as a the house presented an appearance sleeping-room for themselves, in of comfort in every part, as also which the whole family take their the bedding was in good order. food and spend their leisure time; here the family, in a filthy destitute state, with an income averaging 3_s._ 5¼_d._ each per week, four being children under 11 years of age.

2. 2.

Cellar in York-street, In a dwelling-house, Stove-street, Chorlton-upon-Medlock; a man—a one sitting-room, one kitchen and hand-loom weaver—his wife and two bed-rooms, rent 4_s._ per week. family (one daughter married, with A poor widow, with a daughter also her husband forms part of the a widow, with ten children, making family), comprising altogether together 13 in family; 1_l._ 6_s._ seven persons; income 2_l._ 7_s._, per week, averaging 2_s._ per head or 6_s._ 8½_d._ per head; rent per week. Here there is every 2_s._ Here, with the largest amount appearance of cleanliness and of income, the family occupy two comfort. filthy, damp, unwholesome cellars, one of which is a back place without pavement or flooring of any kind, occupied by the loom of the family, and used as a sleeping-room for the married couple and single daughter.

3. 3.

John Salt, of Carr Bank (labourer), George Hall, of Carr Bank wages 12_s._ per week; a wife, and (labourer), wages 10_s._ per week; one child aged 15: he is a drunken, has reared ten children; he is in disorderly fellow, and very much in comfortable circumstances. debt.

4. 4.

William Haynes, of Oakamoore John Hammonds, of Woodhead (wire-drawer), wages 1_l._ per (collier), wages 18_s._ per week; week; he has a wife and five has six children to support; he is children; he is in debt, and his a steady man and saving money. family is shamefully neglected.

5. 5.

George Locket, of Kingsley George Mosley, of Kingsley (boatman), wages 18_s._ per week, (collier), wages 18_s._ per week; with a wife and seven children; his he has a wife and seven children; family are in a miserable he is saving money. condition.

6. 6.

John Banks, of Cheadle (collier), William Faulkner, of Tean wages 18_s._ per week; wife and (tape-weaver), wages 18_s._ per three children; his house is in a week; supports his wife and seven filthy state, and the furniture not children without assistance. worth 10_s._

7. 7.

William Weaver, of Kingsley Charles Rushton, of (boatman), wages 18_s._ per week; Lightwoodfields, wages 14_s._ per wife and three children; he is a week; he supports his wife and five drunken, disorderly fellow, and his children in credit. family entirely destitute.

8. 8.

Richard Barlow, of Cheadle William Sargeant, of (labourer), wages 12_s._ per week; Lightwoodfields (labourer), wages wife and five children, in 13_s._ a-week; he has a wife and miserable circumstance, not a bed six children, whom he supports to lie on. comfortably.

9. 9.

Thomas Bartlem, of Tean (labourer), William Box, of Tean (tape-weaver), wages 14_s._ per week; his wife wages 18_s._ or 20_s._ per week; earns 7_s._ per week; five supports his wife in bad health, children; he is very much in debt; and five children. home neglected.

10. 10.

Thomas Johnson, of Tean Ralph Faulkner, of Tean (blacksmith), wages 18_s._ per (tape-weaver), wages 18_s._ or week; his wife earns 7_s._ per 20_s._ per week; supports a wife week; three children; he is very and five children, three of them much in debt, and his family are deaf and dumb. grossly neglected.

_Mr. Harrison_, the medical officer of the Preston union, observes that—

“I have known many families whose income has exceeded 100_l._ a-year,
who in times of sickness have been in great distress, and even some
who have been obliged to have recourse to the parish for assistance.
And I am acquainted with several families now of the best paid class
of workpeople, whose total weekly earnings will average 2_l._, and in
some cases 3_l._ a-week, who, should sickness overtake the head of the
family, and some of the principal workers among the children, would be
thrown upon the parish. I have been convinced from extensive
observation, that the masters of these people have it in their power
to improve the condition and happiness of their workpeople beyond what
can be effected by any other agency.”

These descriptions are not confined to the English towns. Mr. Jupp and others cite instances from the rural districts. They are similarly prevalent in Scotland. As an example I would refer to the description given by Dr. Scott Alison, of the condition of the highly-paid collier population of Tranent. Take another instance of the condition of the same class, the colliers at Ayr, given by _Dr. Sym_, in his report on the sanitary condition of the population of that town:—

“Although the colliers have large wages, they are, from their want of
economy and their dissolute habits, uniformly in poverty; and their
families, though well fed, are miserably clothed, ill lodged,
uneducated, and less industrious than the families of the weavers; the
females of which work with great constancy at hand-sewing. The modes
of living of these two classes are very different. The weaver is not
intemperate, because he cannot afford to purchase ardent spirits, and
the nature of his employment prevents him from having those hours of
idleness during the day which the collier is so apt to consume in
dissipation. He lives on very innutritious food, seldom eats butchers’
meat, and the most indigent, who are generally Irishmen, subsist
chiefly on potatoes. The collier, on the other hand, indulges to
excess in ardent spirits, and both he and his family partake of animal
food every day. In short, the colliers live better than any of the
other labouring classes in Ayr.”

_Dr. Scott Alison_, speaking of the colliers of Tranent, states that they obtain very high wages. “A man, his wife, and perhaps two children may earn perhaps 40_s._ a-week, if industriously employed during that time.” On the subject of appearances of destitution, on which medical men sometimes report, he observes—

“I have had occasion to know that medical men, judging from internal
appearances of the dwellings of the labouring classes, are liable to
be led into erroneous inferences as to the extent of destitution. The
appearance of the place or of the person is no test of the want of
means or of the highness or lowness of wages. Filth is more frequently
evidence of depravity than of destitution; indeed, in places where the
wages or means are really scanty, there is very frequently
considerable cleanliness. If a stranger went into the house of a
collier, he might exclaim, ‘What extreme wretchedness and
destitution!’ when, in fact, on the Saturday they had received 30_s._,
which before the Tuesday had all been squandered. I think medical men,
who are not intimately acquainted with the character of people, are
often drawn into mistakes.”

The domestic condition of this population admits of a contrast with the condition of individuals of their own description of employment, or with the condition of other classes of miners who receive no higher wages, but whose condition is highly superior, to show that the depraved habits and condition are not the necessary result of the employment. He contrasts the condition of the colliery population of Tranent with the condition of the agricultural labourers in the immediate vicinity of the town:—

“With very few exceptions, the condition of the interior of the houses
of the hind population is excellent, most pleasing to the eye, and
comfortable. These respectable people, in spite of the defective
construction of their cottages, manage to throw an air of comfort,
plenty, neatness, and order around their homes. I have often been
delighted to observe these characteristics, and not less so to mark
the co-existence of pure, moral, and religious principles in the
inmates, the presence of practical religion and practical morals. When
the floor wears away, it is repaired; when the walls lose their
whiteness, they are whitewashed; and every few days the whole wooden
furniture in the house is subjected to thorough cleansing with sand
and warm water. The various articles of furniture, and the different
household utensils, are kept in places allotted to them; and the
earthenware and china well cleaned, are neatly arranged, and made to
serve as ornaments to the apartment. The metal spoons, candlesticks,
and pitchers for containing milk and water, are well burnished. The
milk taken from the cow may be seen set apart in vessels kept in the
nicest order; and beside them lie the churning-barrel and strainer. A
fire sheds its cheerful influence over the scene; the kettle never
wants hot water; and the honest, frugal housewife is ever discharging
some household duty in a spirit of placid contentment, attending to
her partner when present, or preparing his meals against his return
from the fields.

“The external economy of the houses of the hinds is on the whole very
good. The ground in front of the cottages is kept clean and free of
impurities. The little garden, which is almost invariably connected
with the cottage, is kept in good order, and is in general well
cultivated.”

The like contrast, derived from an intimate knowledge of the population of another class, is presented in the following portions of a report from _Mr. Wood_, of Dundee:—

“There are many families among the working classes who are in the
receipt of from 15_s._ to 22_s._ per week, who are insufficiently
clothed, and irregularly and poorly fed, and whose houses as well as
their persons appear filthy, disorderly, and uncomfortable. There are
other families among them, containing the same number of persons,
whose incomes average from 10_s._ to 14_s._ a-week, who are neatly,
cleanly, and sufficiently clothed, regularly and suitably fed, and
whose houses appear orderly and comfortable. The former class care
little for the physical comfort, and far less for the intellectual,
moral, and religious education of their children; in many cases,
indeed, they neglect the education of their offspring when it is
offered to them gratuitously, and in place of sending them to school,
where they might be fitted for the duties and disappointments of life,
they send them at a very early age to some employment, where they will
earn the poor pittance of 1_s._ 6_d._ to 3_s._ a-week. The latter
class, on the contrary, are most anxious to give their children a good
education: they study to obtain it for them by every means in their
power, and they pay for it most cheerfully. The former class again
grasp at every benefit which the charitable institutions of the place
have provided for the poor. When, for example, medical attendance is
given them gratuitously, they not unfrequently despise and refuse it,
unless medicines are given them gratuitously also. Whereas the latter
description of families are not only ready and willing to pay for
medicines when prescribed to them, but they generally manifest much
gratitude, and very often present their medical attendant with a small
fee.

“Now it is among the former class of families where generally there
appears to me to be a deficiency of wholesome food and of warm
clothing; where contagious, febrile diseases are most commonly found;
and from whence they are most extensively propagated. Fever is no
doubt found among the latter, more frugal, and therefore better
conditioned families, but seldom of that malignant, contagious
character which it invariably assumes among the other class of
families. Here, then, we have on the one hand, filth, destitution, and
disease, associated with good wages; and on the other, cleanliness,
comfort, and comparative good health, in connexion with wages which
are much lower. The difference in the amount of their incomes does not
account for the difference in the amount of comfort which is found
existing among the working classes. The statements just made make
known the fact, that above a certain amount, say 12_s._ or 14_s._ of
weekly income, wages _alone_, without intelligence and good habits,
contributes nothing towards the comfort, health, and independence of
the working population. * * * Were I asked how I would propose to
relieve such a family, I would say, show them how they may live
comfortably within their incomes; let them be taught and trained to
habits of industry, frugality, sobriety, cleanliness, &c., and with
this 12_s._ or 14_s._ they may live in health and happiness as others
in similar circumstances have lived and are now living. The man who
maintains himself and his family in comfort on 12_s._ or 14_s._ of
weekly income, possesses what he well deserves, happiness at home, and
he stands forth in his neighbourhood a noble example of honest
independence. I am persuaded that the filth, fever, and destitution in
many families is occasioned, not by their small incomes, but by a
misapplication or a prodigal waste of a part, in some cases a great
part, of their otherwise sufficient wages. Frequently cases are found
where, with a want of skill and economy, there is combined the
intemperate use of intoxicating liquors, and here the misery may be
said to be complete.

“Such is the explanation which I have to offer regarding much of the
misery now prevalent, and it is the explanation invariably given by
the economical working classes themselves when questioned on the
subject. Heads of families, having three or four children, whose
incomes average from 14_s._ to 18_s._ per week, have assured me that a
man with a wife and three or four children can live comfortably on
12_s._ or 14_s._ a-week; and they generally account for the misery and
destitution existing among families by saying, that many who have good
wages reduce themselves to poverty and deprive themselves of
sufficient food and clothing by their mismanagement, want of
frugality, and drinking practices. Cases of waste and dissipation have
been related to me, where the husband having gone to the
tippling-house to enjoy his glass and his friend, the wife, knowing
this, sent for her bottle and her friend, and enjoyed herself at home.
A single visit to one of these spendthrift families, who are in the
receipt of good wages, would convince any one that their persons and
houses might be far more orderly, clean, and comfortable, were they
but half trained to the tastes and habits of household industry,
sobriety, and economy.”

The more closely the investigation as to the causes of epidemic disease is carried the more have the grounds been narrowed on which any presumption can be raised that it is generally occasioned by extreme indigence, or that it could be made generally to disappear simply by grants of money.

In the great mass of cases in every part of the country, in the rural districts and in the places of commercial pressure, the attacks of disease are upon those in full employment, the attack of fever precedes the destitution, not the destitution the disease. There is strong evidence of the existence of a large class of persons in severe penury in some places, as in Glasgow, being subject to fever, but the fever patients did not, as a class, present evidence of being in destitution in any of the places we examined. _Dr. William Davidson_, the senior physician of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, who has written a Treatise on the Sources and Propagation of Continued Fevers, for which the prize instituted by Dr. Thackeray, of Chester, was unanimously awarded at the annual meeting of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, states in that treatise, when speaking of the influence of delicacy of constitution as a predisposing cause of fever,—

“We have kept a record of the physical habit of the patients admitted
into the Glasgow Fever Hospital from May 1st to November 1st, 1839,
and the following were the divisions adopted:—

“1. Moderate, by which is meant a person having an ordinary quantity
of muscle and cellular substance.

“2. Full or plethoric, having an extra quantity of adipose texture or
of blood.

“3. Muscular.

“4. Spare.

“5. Emaciated or unhealthy in appearance.

┌──────────────────────┬────────┬────────┬────────┐
│ │ Males. │Females.│ Total. │
├──────────────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┤
│Moderate │ 116│ 93│ 209│
│Full or Plethoric │ 28│ 73│ 101│
│Muscular │ 44│ │ 44│
│Spare │ 24│ 41│ 65│
│Unhealthy or Emaciated│ 2│ 8│ 10│
│ │ │ │ ———│
│ │ │ │ 429│
└──────────────────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┘

“The whole of these 429 cases were characterized by the typhoid
eruption, and will therefore be considered as decided cases of typhus.
It appears from this table that there were only 10 cases in an
emaciated or unhealthy condition; and almost all of them, as far as
could be ascertained, were engaged in their ordinary occupations at
the time of their seizure. The spare and unhealthy, when added
together, only form about 17 per cent. of the whole number.”

He gives two tables of the proportionate numbers of persons admitted, during the year 1839, into the Glasgow Fever Hospital, whose persons were clean or filthy:—

“These two tables show that, among 611 cases admitted as continued
fever, there were 340 filthy and 271 clean, or about 55 per cent.
filthy; that among 395 cases of eruptive typhus, there were 245 filthy
and 150 clean, or about 62 per cent. filthy; and that among 48 cases
of febricula there were 14 filthy and 34 clean, or about 29 per cent.
filthy.”

Amongst the fever patients are found a larger proportion of the highly intemperate than appear to be usually found amongst the labouring classes.

_Dr. Davidson_, in remarking on the influence of intemperance on fever, adduces the following table to show the proportion of temperate and intemperate individuals who were admitted into the Glasgow Fever Hospital from November 1st, 1838, to November 1st, 1839, whose habits could be ascertained with more or less certainty. He states that the eruptive cases only are included:—

Temperate. A little Intemperate. Intemperate.
Typhus (MALES) 125 51 73
Typhus (FEMALES) 76 8 30

I have been informed that those were classed as “temperate” who never indulged in strong liquors to the extent of inebriety; those a “little intemperate” who now and again, perhaps at long intervals, drank to intoxication; and those as “intemperate” who were habitually so—who drank whenever they could get ardent spirits.

He adds,—

“In the Glasgow Fever Hospital there occurred 81 deaths from eruptive
typhus in individuals whose habits were ascertained, and 34 of these
were reported as intemperate, 19 a little intemperate, and 28
temperate. In Dr. Craigie’s table of the deaths in 31 fever cases that
occurred in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, there were 15 stated to be
irregular or dissipated; only two regular; the habits of the remainder
are not stated.

“It is also a singular fact, which has been noticed by several
writers, that fever is more fatal among the higher than among the
lower classes. Dr. Braken states, in reference to the fever which
prevailed at Waterford during the years 1817–18–19, that ‘it would be
difficult to adjust the rates of mortality in the upper classes, but
it seems probable that one-fourth, or perhaps one-third of all those
persons who were attacked with fever fell victims to its power.’

“Drs. Barker and Cheyne, in their historical account of the Irish
epidemic, state that, ‘in every part of the country, fever was
reported to have been much more fatal amongst the upper than the lower
classes.’ To what is this difference of mortality, so generally
remarked by experienced hospital physicians, to be attributed, and
which in Ireland seemed to be very remarkable, namely, in the lower
classes about one in twenty-three cases, and in the upper classes one
in three or four generally, but in other places about one in seven?
Can the difference in the mode of living account for this anomaly? as
the first live very much on potatoes, while the others use a larger or
smaller proportion of animal food; and the lower classes almost
everywhere in this country use less animal food and stimulating dishes
than those who are more wealthy and in a higher sphere of society.”

In remarking on the supposed influence of fear and the depressing passions in producing fever, _Dr. Davidson_, however, remarks:—

“The influence of fear and the depressing passions has also been
considered as very powerful in predisposing persons to be affected
with typhus contagion. There can be no doubt that fear has a tendency
to produce a temporary depression of the physical powers; but, as has
been already shown, there is no proof that persons of a naturally
spare or weak habit of body, who are generally very sensitive, are
more liable to fever than those of an ordinary constitution; this
opinion must also be considered hypothetical. Indeed the facts, as far
as our inquiries have enabled us to judge, seem to prove that the
apprehension of fever, more particularly when it is not epidemic, is
very rarely felt until the person is actually seized with the disease;
for some cannot recollect of a single circumstance by which they could
be exposed to contagion; and a considerable number of those who had
undoubtedly been exposed to it were only made aware of the fact when
it had been elicited by cross-examination. We are quite aware that
cases may be brought forward of sensitive individuals who have been
seized with fever soon after visiting a person labouring under the
disease; but as this fact can be opposed with at least an equal number
of persons who were destitute of fear, and yet caught it after an
exposure to contagion, no conclusion whatever can be drawn from them.
It must be observed, however, that though there is no proof that
persons who are naturally weak in body or of a sensitive disposition
are more susceptible of fever than those who are naturally vigorous
and robust, yet that, during famine or commercial distress, poverty,
by depressing the mind and lowering the physical status from
insufficient aliment, does powerfully predispose a community to become
affected with fever. This has been already shown in a former part of
the essay, and has been again alluded to in order that the distinction
might be made between an individual of naturally weak mental and
physical stamina, and one who has been reduced to that state by
deficient nutriment.”