Chapter XXIII: Appendix (13)

The effect of sanitary care in the mines of Camborne is, so far as it has been carried, marked in the following table, made up by Mr. Blee, a medical practitioner in the neighbourhood, from the mortuary registers, showing the average age of death of the population as compared with the average of death in two other adjacent parishes of Illogan and Gwennap, in both of which some beneficent alterations have been made, especially in Illogan, but the works are stated to be new, and the circumstances not so favourable as at Camborne:—

TABLE showing the average Ages of Persons dying above 30, and
registered, in three years in the Parish of Camborne, in two years in
Gwennap, and in one year in Illogan.

┌────────┬───────────────┬────────┬───────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ Males. │Females.│ Proportion per cent. of Miners’ │ │ │ │ │ Deaths by Mine Accidents. │ ├────────┼───────┬───────┼────────┼───────────────────────────────────┤ │ │Miners.│ Not │ │ │ │ │ │Miners.│ │ │ ├────────┼───────┼───────┼────────┼───────────────────────────────────┤ │Gwennap │ 45│ 60│ 64│ 16│ │Illogan │ 49│ 68│ 64│ 32│ │Camborne│ 54│ 60│ 63│ 5│ └────────┴───────┴───────┴────────┴───────────────────────────────────┘

The improvement in Camborne had not reached the residences, where the miners kept pigs, in sties close behind the house, and a dungheap is carefully fostered in a catch-pit adjacent. Dr. Barham, and the medical men practising in the vicinity, attribute to the decomposition of vegetable matter in the “soaked soil from the receptacles near the dwellings a form of fever which has been hanging about Camborne, and has often passed into the typhoid condition, and has been attended with great prostration of strength.”[30]

I have obtained through Mr. Baker, of Leeds, who, as superintendent of factories, has had good means of making an accurate comparison, the following contrast of the results as shown in the state of mortality amidst the population of two contiguous manufacturing districts employed in similar proportions in the same description of work, and differing only in the state of the atmosphere in which they lived. The districts are the townships of Great Bradford and Horton, in Yorkshire, both in the parish of Bradford, and contiguous, differing only in elevation and atmospheric influence.

“The town of Bradford lies in a hollow formed by the high land of the
surrounding country, a part of which forms the township of Horton, and
both populations, in about an equal ratio, are employed in
worsted-mills, built about the same period of time, in the same kind
of architecture, with the same appliances for ventilation and
purification in every respect, differing only in comparison as to
numbers both of population and mills.

Population. Births. Deaths.
Bradford 34,560 1 in 25·8 1 in 37·3
Horton 17,618 1 in 28·0 1 in 47·0

“The difference between the two localities will at once be seen, and
can only be accounted for by the difference in atmospheric influences,
the former population being resident in ill-conditioned dwellings,
without sufficient ventilation; the latter residing in localities
which, though undrained in many instances, are yet open to pure air
and breezes which never reach the town without the most perfect
contamination.”

Dr. Barham mentions, as an example of the benevolent foresight which economizes the strength and life of workmen, and perceives that there is a profit as well as humanity in so doing, that at Tresavean, a great copper mine in Gwennap, as a substitute for the ladders, before universal, machinery has been erected for the raising and lowering of the miners. This, he states, will be effected at the cost of 2000_l._ at the least, but this sum, it is calculated, will soon be repaid by the saving of the time and fatigue of the men.

Such evidence as that above given, and as will be submitted in other instances, will leave little doubt that, by a combination of practicable sanitary regulations comprehending the economy of the residence as well as the place of work, the enormous suffering and waste of life which at present depresses large masses of the working population may be rendered comparatively inconsiderable. The amount of such depression on the mining population, in making it consist of young persons and more transient, is marked in a return prepared by Mr. R. Lanyon, the medical practitioner acquainted with the locality, and which was read at the Polytechnic Society in Cornwall.

On examining the ages of 2145 _men_ engaged in mining, it was found that their average age was 30 years, and that the average period they had been engaged in work was 15 years. On examining the condition of 1033 _men_, artisans, agricultural labourers, living and working in the vicinity, it was found that their average age was 40 years, and that their average period of work then completed was 25 years. Of the mining population one-third only had reached 50 years of age, whilst of the non-mining population one-third had attained 70 years of age.

I might submit these two examples, the one as a young and comparatively weak population, the other as a comparatively mature and strong population. The adult mining population of 30 years of age is not, I apprehend, a population advancing to a further stage of maturity, but one kept down by noxious agencies and premature mortality to that limit of age, with no chance for them or for other generations to pass beyond it whilst in this employment, except through the operation of sanitary measures in removing the causes of depression.

The difference in the proportions of ages between a depressed and unhealthy and a comparatively long-lived and strong population, is shown in the following comparative view of the ages of the miners and of the 1033 non-mining labourers who were living and working:—

┌──────────────┬───────┬─────┬──────┬─────┬──────┬─────┬─────┬────────┐ │ │ 30 │ 40 │ 45 │ 50 │ 55 │ 60 │ 70 │80 Years│ │ │ Years │Years│Years │Years│Years │Years│Years│ and │ │ │of Age │ and │ and │ and │ and │ and │ and │upwards.│ │ │ and │under│under │under│under │under│under│ │ │ │ under │ 45. │ 50. │ 55. │ 60. │ 70. │ 80. │ │ │ │ 40. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├──────────────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼─────┼────────┤ │Miners 1651│ 772│ 377│ 239│ 125│ 56│ 29│ 1│ │ │Labourers 1033│ 695│ 422│ Not │ 284│ Not │ 144│ 48│ 7│ │ │ │ │given.│ │given.│ │ │ │ │ │ Per │ Per │ Per │ Per │ Per │ Per │ Per │ Per │ │ │ cent. │cent.│cent. │cent.│cent. │cent.│cent.│ cent. │ │Miners │ 47│ 23│ 14│ 7½│ 3½│ 1½│ │ │ │Labourers │ 67│ 41│ │ 27│ │ 14│ 4½│ ½│ └──────────────┴───────┴─────┴──────┴─────┴──────┴─────┴─────┴────────┘

So that whilst in every 100 men of the younger population of workpeople there would not be 2 men of the experience beyond sixty years of age, not 8 above fifty, or not a fourth passed forty; in the older population there would be 14 beyond sixty, 27 beyond fifty, or a clear majority of mature age, and, it may be presumed, of the comparatively staid habits given by age. Dr. Scott Allison found that the average age of the living male heads of families of the _collier_ population at Tranent whose condition he has contrasted with that of the agricultural population, and whose ages he could ascertain, was 34 years; whilst the average age of the living male heads of the agricultural families was 51 years and 10 months. He considers that the like proportions would be found to be more extensively prevalent, and would serve as fair indications of the relative condition of the different populations.

Whenever the adult population of a physically depressed district, such as Manchester, is brought out on any public occasion, the preponderance of youth in the crowd and the small proportion of aged, or even of the middle aged, amongst them is apt to strike those who have seen assemblages of the working population of other districts more favourably situated.

In the course of some inquiries under the Constabulary Force Commission as to the proportions of a paid force that would apparently be requisite for the protection of the peace in the manufacturing districts, reference was made to the meetings held by torchlight in the neighbourhood of Manchester. It was reported to us, on close observation by peace-officers, that the bulk of the assemblages consisted of mere boys, and that there were scarcely any men of mature age to be seen amongst them. Those of mature age and experience, it was stated, generally disapproved of the proceedings of the meetings as injurious to the working classes themselves. These older men, we were assured by their employers, were intelligent, and perceived that capital, and large capital, was not the means of their depression, but of their steady and abundant support. They were generally described as being above the influence of the anarchical fallacies which appeared to sway those wild and really dangerous assemblages. The inquiry which arose upon such statements was how it happened that the men of mature age, feeling their own best interests injured by the proceedings of the younger portion of the working classes, how they, the elders, did not exercise a restraining influence upon their less experienced fellow-workmen? On inquiring of the owner of some extensive manufacturing property, on which between 1000 and 2000 persons were maintained at wages yielding 40_s._ per week per family, whether he could rely on the aid of the men of mature age for the protection of the capital which furnished them the means of subsistence? he stated he could rely on them confidently. But on ascertaining the numbers qualified for service as special constables, the gloomy fact became apparent, that the proportion of men of strength and of mature age for such service were but as a small group against a large crowd, and that for any social influence they were equally weak. The disappearance by premature deaths of the heads of families and the older workmen at such ages as those recorded in the returns of dependent widowhood and orphanage, must to some extent practically involve the necessity of supplying the lapse of staid influence amidst a young population by one description or other of precautionary force.

On expostulating on other occasions with middle-aged and experienced workmen on the folly as well as the injustice of their trade unions, by which the public peace was compromised by the violences of strike after strike, without regard to the experiences of the suffering from the continued failures of their exertions for objects the attainment of which would have been most injurious to themselves, the workmen of the class remonstrated with, invariably disclaimed connexion with the proceedings, and showed that they abstained from attendance at the meetings. The common expression was, they would not attend to be borne down by “mere boys,” who were furious, and knew not what they were about. The predominance of a young and violent majority was general.

In the metropolis the experience is similar. The mobs against which the police have to guard come from the most depressed districts; and the constant report of the superintendents is, that scarcely any old men are to be seen amongst them. In general they appear to consist of persons between 16 to 25 years of age. The mobs from such districts as Bethnal Green are proportionately conspicuous for a deficiency of bodily strength, without, however, being from that cause proportionately the less dangerously mischievous. I was informed by peace officers that the great havoc at Bristol was committed by mere boys.

The experience of the metropolitan police is also similar as to the comparatively small proportion of force available for public service from such depressed districts. It is corroborative also of the evidence as to the physical deterioration of their population, as well as the disproportion in respect to age. Two out of every three of the candidates for admission to the police force itself are found defective in the physical qualifications. It is rare that any one of the candidates from Spitalfields, Whitechapel, or the districts where the mean duration of life is low, is found to possess the requisite physical qualifications for the force, which is chiefly recruited from the open districts at the outskirts of the town, or from Norfolk and Suffolk, and other agricultural counties.

In general the juvenile delinquents, who come from the inferior districts of the towns, are conspicuously under size. In a recent examination of juvenile delinquents at Parkhurst by Mr. Kay Shuttleworth, the great majority were found to be deficient in physical organization. An impression is often prevalent that the criminal population consists of persons of the greatest physical strength. Instances of criminals of great strength certainly do occur; but speaking from observation of the adult prisoners from the towns and the convicts in the hulks, they are in general below the average standard of height.

Reverting to the observations as to the influence of adverse physical circumstances on the morals of the population, I must here include in the observation the younger portion of the population.

I might adduce the evidence of the teachers of the pauper children at Norwood to show that a deteriorated physical condition does in fact greatly increase the difficulty of moral and intellectual cultivation. The intellects of the children of such inferior physical organization are torpid; it is comparatively difficult to gain their attention or to sustain it; it requires much labour to irradiate the countenance with intelligence, and the irradiation is apt to be transient. As a class they are comparatively irritable and bad tempered. The most experienced and zealous teachers are gladdened by the sight of well-grown healthy children, which presents to them better promise that their labours will be less difficult and more lasting and successful. On one occasion a comparison was made between the progress of two sets of children in Glasgow, the one set taken from the wynds and placed under the care of one of the most skilful and successful infant schoolmasters, the other a set of children from a more healthy town district and of a better physical condition, placed under the care of a pupil of the master who had charge of the children from the wynds. After a trial for a sufficient time, the more experienced master acknowledged the comparative inferiority of his pupils, and his inability to keep them up to the pace of the better bodily conditioned children.

The facts indicated will suffice to show the importance of the moral and political considerations, viz., that the noxious physical agencies depress the health and bodily condition of the population, and act as obstacles to education and to moral culture; that in abridging the duration of the adult life of the working classes they check the growth of productive skill, and abridge the amount of social experience and steady moral habits in the community: that they substitute for a population that accumulates and preserves instruction and is steadily progressive, a population that is young, inexperienced, ignorant, credulous, irritable, passionate, and dangerous, having a perpetual tendency to moral as well as physical deterioration.

The group of cases of the mining population from Alston and Garrigill, it appears to me, will, when considered, afford an example of the powerful nature of the physical elements of deterioration. In that district the employers and persons of the higher classes have paid great attention to maintain the means of moral improvement. They have only not been made aware of the practicability or of the importance of sustaining the physical condition of the workpeople, as exemplified in respect to the same description of labourers at Camborne.

The duration of life amongst the mining population of the lead-miners at Alston and Garrigill, and the adjacent district, is about 14 years less than that given by the Swedish tables. Their physical condition was depressed. “The young men appeared very healthy, but exceedingly few of them,” says Dr. Mitchell, “were of a large size; and in general it may be said they are of a small size.” He states that in moral condition they are most exemplary:—

“The means of education in Alston parish are extensive: there is the
grammar-school, the master of which must be acquainted with Latin, but
he gives a general education; there is a charity-school, and a school
kept by a master on his own account; there is the school of the London
Lead Company at Nenthead, at which other children besides those of
their own workpeople are allowed to attend. There is a school at
Garrigill Gate, and one at Tynehead, and another at Leadgate; there
are also many dame schools and 10 Sunday schools. * * * I procured the
catalogues of several libraries, and the books are such as to convey
valuable information, and are far superior to most of the works which
are found in the catalogues of the institutions called literary and
scientific in and about the metropolis. * * * As to the intellectual
condition of the people, it is decidedly superior to that of any
district of England of which I have any knowledge. The witnesses
uniformly manifested a clearness of comprehension of the inquiries
made of them, and gave distinct replies, and added of themselves other
information hearing on the subject. Almost all of them could sign
their evidence, and most of them wrote exceedingly well. * * * The
evidence of the employers and the parochial authorities, as well as of
the men themselves, fully proves that there is a very general
sobriety, and that the contrary practice is exceedingly rare. * * *
Offences against property are very rare. It may be doubted whether we
may consider it a proof of the honesty of the people, that pigs of
lead may be seen lying by the road sides and in the fells as much
exposed as so many stones. There is no magistrate nearer to Alston
than a distance of 14 miles. Offences against the law are very rare.”

Instances have been frequently presented in the course of this inquiry of the moral degradation of the children of workpeople, and of the workpeople themselves, who have once been what those miners now are in moral condition; but the cases taken from the pauper roll of the union will serve to show that even a good education will not, of itself, sustain such a body of workmen against the physical causes of depression. The group of cases of widowhood, when considered, will serve to show that the causes in question create the evils of which they are supposed to be natural correctives.

With such an educated class of workmen, the obtainment of a place and the wages of an adult must be the necessary preliminary to a marriage, and unless such place or wages were obtained, the young workman would either remain single or seek employment further a-field. But we will suppose, for illustration, that a casualty occurs, such as the last death on the list, J. M., where a young miner who has married and has a wife and two children is prematurely swept away by an epidemic at 21 years of age, leaving a widow and two destitute orphan children dependent on poor relations, or on the ratepayers. The first mentioned, say S. H., then takes the vacant place of work, marries, and is killed at 34 years of age by “an accident in the mine,” leaving a widow and seven orphan children. This third vacancy in the place of work is occupied by another miner H. Y., who marries and works until he is 45, when he is killed by “consumption,” leaving a widow and five children.

Such casualties do not of course actually so fall on any one place of work, but the vacancies so created in different places at the younger periods of life must be and are supplied by new hands coming into the employment, and marrying as a consequence of that employment, and the succession will fairly represent 1 he mode in which the vacancies created by the various causes of death displayed in the last table and in the other tables of the causes of premature widowhood and orphanage occur.

In works where the average period of working ability is extended to the natural period of superannuation, which the evidence shows that a combination of internal and external sanitary measures maybe expected to give, namely an average of full 60 years, the account for one place would be one superannuated workman and one widow, and a family of four or five well-grown children, who, having received parental care during that period, will probably all have obtained, before its termination, the means of independent self-support. Whereas with a population of only 15 or 20 years of working ability, the same place of work may during the same period have been filled by two generations and one-fourth of workpeople, not one of which has brought all the children dependent on it to maturity or a condition for self-support; and the account of widowhood and orphanage will frequently for the same place of work stand thus:—

Workmen prematurely Dead. Orphan Children. Years’ loss of Support.
J. M. 1 widow 2 39
S. H. 1 widow 7 26
H. Y. 1 widow 5 15

That is to say, three widows instead of one, and three sets of stunted and unhealthy children dependent for such various periods, as those above specified, and competing for employment at the same place, instead of one set of healthy children arrived at the age of working ability for self-support. The occupation of the places of work by a comparatively young and procreative population, brought forward by the premature removal of the middle aged and the aged workers, by the various causes of premature deaths—the acceleration of births by premature deaths in infancy as stated in a preceding note—will, I apprehend, sufficiently clearly account for the generally increased proportions of births in those districts where the rate of mortality is high; and it will scarcely be necessary to give further illustrations of the dreadful fallacy which tends to an acquiescence in the continuance of the causes of pestilence and premature mortality as correctives of the pressure of population.”

Though the deaths from accidents bear only a small proportion to the deaths from disease, yet registries show that the scattered deaths from various descriptions of violence amount to an average of about 12,000 yearly, in England and Wales alone, or more than aroused the national attention in the late massacre of the troops of the empire during the war in India. The position which this class of causes occupy, in the production of destitute orphanage and widowhood, is shown in the previous tables; but these do not comprehend the whole of the effects; another class of which appear on examining the causes of pauperism: namely, the injuries which occasion permanent disablement. In an analysis of the causes of pauperism, by _Mr. Simkiss_, the auditor of the Wolverhampton union, the cases of which the subjoined is a list were apparent on the pauper-roll.

┌──────┬──────────────┬──────────────────┬────────────────────────────┐ │No. of│ Previous │ Nature of │ Respective Ages. │ │Cases.│Occupations of│ Accident. │ │ │ │ the Paupers. │ │ │ ├──────┼──────────────┼──────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤ │ 18│Miners │Hurt in mines │21, 23, 27, 30, 34, 34, 40, │ │ │ │ │ 40, 43, 44, 47, 49, 50, │ │ │ │ │ 50, 51, 53, 60, 60. │ │ 2│Ditto │Burnt in mines │40, 60. │ │ 1│Locksmith │Lamed by accident │30. │ │ 1│Wheelwright │Accident by waggon│69. │ │ 1│Single woman │Lost her arm by │23. │ │ │ │ accident. │ │ └──────┴──────────────┴──────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘

On examining the individual cases of deaths that are classed as incident to the pursuit of the chief branches of mining or manufacturing industry, or in transport whether by land or water, it has always been satisfactory to find that for the future, by care, the greater proportion of them are preventible. In the case of the mining accidents, one part of them appear preventible by care of the superior managers of the mines—in arrangements over which the individual workman has no control; the other portion, by intelligence and care on the part of the workmen; and this last class of cases again reverts back to the power, and therefore to the means of imposing responsibility on the employers in the selection of educated and intelligent workmen—of habits of sobriety, and care to qualify them for works of danger. But at present they are, in a great measure, relieved from responsibility by the charge incurred by the want of care being thrown on other funds raised from persons who have as yet no practicable means of protection or prevention. When continued and dreadful losses of life take place, in the face of examples of successful prevention such as might be collected from every part of the country, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that if the branch of industry were charged with the pecuniary consequences of the losses assumed to be necessarily incident to it, generations would not be allowed to pass away in fear, recklessness, and misery without the early adoption of those means of prevention which self-interest would then stimulate. A frequent suggestion made upon the view of such casualties is that government inspectors should be appointed to inspect and direct and regulate machinery.

This subject was brought under consideration in the course of the proceedings of the Factory Commission of Inquiry, and it was then agreed that such a measure as that of inspection would only give an imperfect security, and would occasion vexatious interruptions, and that the least objectionable mode of interference, as well as the most efficient and just as a means of prevention, would be to charge a portion at least of the cost of such casualties upon the branch of industry. Subsequent observation, especially of the causes of pauperism, have strengthened my convictions of the soundness of the principle of prevention as stated in our Report, a passage from which I have submitted in the Appendix.[31]

In illustration of the pecuniary cost of disease, as shown in the cost of remedies in Scotland, there are several documents. The late _Dr. Cowan_, the professor of Forensic medicine at Glasgow, gives one in which he states—

“If any arguments were wanting to arouse the community to the
investigation of this important subject, they might be drawn from the
heavy pecuniary tax which fever entails on the benevolent of our city,
from the poverty, misery, and crime which this disease engenders. It
is not possible, from the data before me, to give anything like an
accurate calculation of the sums spent for the treatment of fever in
Glasgow during the last twenty years. The following calculation
intentionally falls considerably under the amount, to prevent every
suspicion of exaggeration:—

£. _s._ _d._

1. Cost of the fever hospital 8,566 7 9

2. Temporary hospitals, and maintenance of patients 5,000 0 0
in them

3. 21,691 patients at 1_l._ 10_s._ treated at the 32,536 10 0
expense of the infirmary

——————— —— —

£46,102 17 9

======= == =

To this amount fall to be added the expense of treating the poor in
their own houses under the district surgeons of the burgh, and any
sums expended by the heritors or the gorbals and barony parishes for
similar purposes. But this sum must have been greatly increased by the
demands of pauperism produced by fever, on our poor’s-rates, and on
the private benevolence of our citizens; for the duration of the
disease, and the period of convalescence which must elapse before an
individual can resume his work will average rather more than six
weeks, and when to this is added the difficulty of again finding
immediate employment, we may safely assume that the 12,895 individuals
treated in the fever hospitals during the last seven years, all, with
few exceptions, depending on their daily labour and extending the
benefit of that labour to others, were out of employment for a period
of at least six weeks.”

The _Rev. G. Lewis_, the minister of St. David’s parish, Dundee, who has answered the queries issued by the Board, and very powerfully addressed the inhabitants on this subject, in the course of one of his addresses, observes that—

“Apart altogether from the waste of human life, and the indescribable
suffering and sorrow which annually fall upon the working classes of
Dundee from this periodical scourge, and viewed only as a mere matter
of profit and loss to the mercantile and monied interest of Dundee, it
were easy to demonstrate, that the expenditure of several thousand
pounds per annum, in providing the means of cleanliness to this town,
in the better cleansing of its streets, but, above all, of its back
closes, courts, and lanes, and the clearing away of those pestilential
masses of building which lie concealed from view behind the front
lines of some of our principal streets, would have been rewarded by a
saving to the community of a vast sum, which the ravages of disease
and death have been, for the last few years, compelling Dundee to pay
in a way its inhabitants think not of. That this may appear, I have
brought into one table the number of cases of fever during the last
seven years.

“CASES of Fever in
Dundee during the
last seven years,
from 1833 to 1839,
inclusive,
calculated from the
Bills of Mortality
according to the
proportion of nine
cases to each
death:—

Year. Cases. Deaths.
1833 1,188 132
1834 1,521 169
1835 1,179 131
1836 2,673 297
1837 1,881 209
1838 1,773 197
1839 1,593 177
—————— —————
11,808 1,312
—————— —————

“Thus, in seven years, fever has fallen on much more than a tithe of
the inhabitants,—choosing its victims here, as elsewhere, in the
manhood of life, and compelling the citizens of Dundee to pay a tax
frightful in the amount of personal sufferings and family
bereavements.

“But it were a mistake to imagine that the sufferings and death of so
many citizens are the only _tithes_ which fever has compelled us to
pay during the last seven years. Put wholly aside the details of
domestic woe and personal suffering which 11,808 cases of fever have
introduced into the families of Dundee in these seven years—omit all
reckoning of the watching, want, and wretchedness, wrapped up in so
many cases of acute disease, and the family bereavements implied in
these 1,312 death—and let us view for a moment our fellow-creatures
but as so many machines suspended from work by the derangement or
destruction of the human machinery, that we may learn something of the
probable money loss incurred by fever in these seven years.

“From Dr. Southwood Smith, the highest authority on these subjects, we
learn that fully one-half of the cases of fever occur in the prime of
life, when men are most useful either to their families or to society.
Deducting then the 1,312 deaths from the whole number of cases, there
will remain 10,496 cases of fever, the one-half of whom, at least,
were adults,—that is, 5,248 persons in the prime of life, very many of
them heads of families, had fever in these seven years. Now, the
average period fever detains a patient from work, according to the
same authority, is six weeks. Let us take the earnings in health of
these adults at the average of 8_s._ weekly; and the loss of wages to
these 5,248 adults, by six weeks’ fever, amounts to 12,595_l._; and
this, after excluding all under age, and all the deaths. But these
cases, whether treated at home or at the infirmary, must be also
loaded with the expense of medical treatment, which is estimated in
our infirmary reports at 1_l._ to each case, that is, 5,248_l._ must
he added to the loss by wages. But 5,248 cases of those under age
remain to be accounted for; and, as fever rarely attacks mere
children, but chiefly those either in manhood or approaching manhood,
we may estimate the loss of their labour at the one-half of the
adults, or 6,297_l._ 12_s._, and the expense of attendance and
recovery at one-half also, or 2,624_l._

“But how shall we estimate the pecuniary loss of 1,312 deaths? It
seems a strange thing to go about estimating the money value of that
which money did not give, and cannot restore when taken away; yet as
there are those who understand better a profit and loss account than
the arguments of religion and humanity, we shall attempt to estimate
the money loss of these 1,312 deaths by fever.

“At least one-half, or 656 of these deaths, were deaths of adults, and
very many of them heads of families, of which the 337 widows in St.
David’s parish afford melancholy evidence.”

He then refers to an estimate made by _Mr. M’Culloch_, who, viewing a human being as a productive machine, reared to last a certain time, and to return so much more than he costs, estimates a full-grown workman just, arrived at maturity as having 300_l._ of capital invested in him. At the actual cost of maintaining and training a pauper child in England at the school in Norwood, 4_s._ 6_d._ per week, he will have had expended upon him at 21 years of age, 245_l._, or at 30 years, 350_l._; but he supposes—

“The money value of these male and female adults to be just the
one-half of this, or 150_l._, which makes the loss, by the premature
death of these 656 adults, to be 98,400_l._; and, if the remaining 656
under the age of maturity, yet approaching it, be taken at the half of
the adults, or 75_l._ each, we have a loss of 49,200_l._ more; to
which, if we add 1_l._ a-piece, or 1,312_l._ in all, for attendance
and medical expenses, the Fever Bill of Dundee, during the last seven
years, will stand as follows:—

Fever Bill of Dundee from 1833 to 1839.

£. _s._ _d._

Loss of labour for six weeks of 5,248 adults at 12,595 0 0
8_s._ a-week

Attendance, medicine at home or infirmary, at 1_l._ 5,248 0 0
each

Loss of labour for six weeks of 5,248 under age, at 6,297 12 0
4_s._ a-week

Expense of treatment of the above at infirmary or 2,624 0 0
home, at 10_s._ a-piece

Loss by death of 656 adults, at 150_l._ each. 98,400 0 0

Loss by 656 deaths under age, at 75_l._ a-piece 49,200 0 0

Treatment of 1,312 cases, at 1_l._ each 1,312 0 0

———————— —— —

£175,676 12 0

Or 25,096_l._ 13_s._ per annum.

“The poor, we are told, we shall always have with us, and so with
disease and death. Yet the evils, both of poverty and disease, come in
very different measures to different communities. As there is a
poverty that is self-inflicted, and may be self-removed, so there is a
certain amount of disease and annual mortality in every city that is
self-inflicted; and the community that does not strive, by every
available means, to reduce its disease and mortality bills to the
lowest sum of human suffering, and the lowest rate of annual
mortality, is as guilty of suicide as the individual who, Judas like,
takes with his own hands the life God has given, and hurries unbidden
into the presence of his Judge. The fever bills of the Scottish towns,
contrasted with those of the English commercial towns, declare too
plainly that man has not yet done his part in Dundee to avert this
scourge of society; and, while fever is undoubtedly to be regarded as
the visitation of God, it is also to be regarded as the visitation of
God for the sin of neglecting a population fallen in character and
habits.

In the following table are given the deaths in Dundee in seven years,
and the rate to the population,—supposing the inhabitants in 1831 to
have been 45,355 souls, and to have increased about 2000 annually,
until 1839, when from bad trade the increase was checked:—

Years. Deaths. Population. Proportion of Deaths to the Population.
1833 1,482 49,355 1 in 33·3
1834 1,650 51,355 1 in 31·1
1835 1,673 53,355 1 in 31·9
1836 1,923 55,355 1 in 28·8
1837 1,963 57,355 1 in 29·2
1839 1,511 59,355 1 in 39·3
1839 1,763 59,355 1 in 33·7
—————— ——————— —————————
11,965 385,485 1 in 32·2
—————— ——————— —————————

Thus, the average mortality in Dundee, during the last seven years,
was 1 in 32 annually. * * * Here, then, in Dundee, the deaths annually
are at least one-fourth more than over the rest of Scotland, Glasgow
excepted, which seems to surpass Dundee in the waste of human life. If
the deaths are a fourth greater, those diseases which are its
harbingers must be many times greater than the deaths; and to this
extent, at least, it was in the power of human means to have provided
a remedy,—to have abated by one-fourth the physical suffering and
mortality of Dundee, saved 2,952 persons from fever, and 328 persons
from premature death, and reduced by a fourth part the pecuniary loss
incurred during the last seven years,—in other words, to have saved
43,919_l._, or 6,274_l._ annually, to the profit and loss account of
this city in the single item of fever.

“The statistics of small-pox in Dundee might be added to this bill of
charges. It is sufficient, however, to allude to it. Last year, the
deaths by small-pox were 77. In 1838, they were also 77; and in 1837,
they amounted to 126. The number of cases, of course, must have been
many times the deaths; by far the greater number under age and
unvaccinated,—a neglect no longer confined to the Irish population.

* * * * *

“Though I am no medical authority, yet I am sure that I have every
medical authority with me when I connect, as foremost amongst the
causes of the enormous Fever Bill of Dundee that monstrous Tavern
Bill, which last lecture I showed you was the worm in the bud of the
happiness and well-being of its working classes. That Tavern Bill,
according to the mean of three different estimates, amounts to
21,234_l._ a-year in my parish alone, and to 180,000_l._ a-year to all
Dundee. In vain we cry out against the taxation of Government. While
the words of complaint are on our lips, here is a vice of continual
tasting and tippling in strong drink,—a private self-imposed tax, but
heavier far than any public tax. It is this besetting sin that has
been not only devouring the substance of the poor, but every year
sowing the seeds of that enormous Fever Bill which for the last seven
years has been taxing us, not only in purse but in person,—compelling
every tenth man in Dundee during that period to pay the wages of six
weeks’ labour, and to suffer all the langour, sickness, and oppression
of six weeks’ fever, besides the bereaved widows and orphans, and the
fatherless and motherless children it has left in Dundee.”

I now proceed to submit the reasons for believing that the immediate expenditure of so much money as would be incurred by the adoption of such of the remedial measures as appear to be available by the agency of any public administration would be sound measures of immediate economy, and of ultimate public gain: and also the grounds for believing that the same conclusion is applicable to the cost of those measures of prevention which, though directly or indirectly controllable by legislative authority, are within the province of private individuals to execute, such as the construction of the dwellings of the labouring classes.

VI.—EVIDENCE OF THE EFFECTS OF PREVENTIVE MEASURES IN RAISING THE
STANDARD OF HEALTH AND THE CHANCES OF LIFE.

On viewing the evidence, which shows that, in most situations higher chances of life belong to the middle and higher classes of the population, an impression may be created that the higher standards of health are essentially connected with expensive modes of living. The highest medical authorities agree, however, that the more important means for the protection and advance of the health of those classes must be in still further reductions than those which it is the present tendency in the higher classes of society to make of the use of highly stimulating food. The evidence already adduced with respect to the labouring classes in the rural districts and those living on high wages in towns, will have gone some way to remove the erroneous impression with respect to them, and it admits of proof that a higher standard of health and comfort is attainable for them even at a less expense than that in which they now live in disease and misery. The experience of the effect of sanitary measures in the royal navy may be adduced as evidence of the practicable standards of health consistent with great labour and exposure to weather obtained at a cost not higher than that within the wages of ordinary labourers. The experience of the effects of sanitary measures in banishing spontaneous disease from crowded prisons, offers further evidence of the health obtainable by simple means, under circumstances still more unfavourable.

The prisons were formerly distinguished for their filth, and their bad ventilation; but the descriptions given by Howard of the worst prisons he visited in England (which he states were amongst the worst he had seen in Europe) were exceeded in every wynd in Edinburgh and Glasgow, inspected by Dr. Arnott and myself, in company with the municipal officers of those cities. More filth, worse physical suffering and moral disorder than Howard describes as affecting the prisoners, are to be found amongst the cellar population of the working people of Liverpool, Manchester, or Leeds, and in large portions of the metropolis. As a standard of the progress made in ameliorating the condition of prisoners, I refer to his general statement of the condition in which he found the prisons when he inspected them in England.

“_Water._—Many prisons have _no water_. This defect is frequent in
bridewells and town gaols. In the felons’ courts of some county gaols
there is no water: in some places where there is water, prisoners are
always locked up within doors, and have no more than the keeper or his
servants think fit to bring them.

“_Air._—And as to air, which is no less necessary than the two
preceding articles, and given us by Providence quite gratis, without
any care or labour of our own; yet, as if the bounteous goodness of
heaven excited our envy, methods are contrived to rob prisoners of
this genuine cordial of life, as Dr. Hales very properly calls it; I
mean by preventing that circulation and change of the fluid without
which animals cannot live and thrive. It is well known that air which
has performed its office in the lungs is feculent and noxious. Writers
upon this subject show that a hogshead of air will last a man only an
hour: but those who do not choose to consult philosophers may judge
from a notorious fact. In 1756, at Calcutta, in Bengal, out of 170
persons who were confined in a hole there one night, 154 were taken
out dead. The few survivors ascribed the mortality to their want of
fresh air; and called the place, Hell in Miniature.

“From hence any one may judge of the probability there is against
health and life of prisoners crowded in their rooms, cells, and
subterraneous dungeons, for 14 or 15 hours out of the 24. In some of
those caverns the floor is very damp; in some there is sometimes an
inch or two of water; and the straw or bedding is laid on such floors,
seldom on barrack bedsteads. Where prisoners are not kept in
underground cells, they are often confined in their rooms, because
there is no court belonging to the prisons; which is the case in many
city and town gaols; because the walls round the yard are ruinous, or
are too low[32] for safety; or because the gaoler has the ground for
his own use. Prisoners confined in this manner are generally
unhealthy.

“In Baker’s Chronicle, p. 353, that historian, mentioning the assize
held in Oxford Castle, 1577 (called, from its fatal consequences, the
Black Assize), informs us, ‘that all who were present died within
forty hours; the lord chief baron, the sheriff, and about 300 more.’
Lord Chancellor Bacon ascribes this to a disease brought into court by
the prisoners; and Dr. Mead is of the same opinion.

“The first of these two authors, Lord Bacon, observes, that ‘the most
pernicious infection, next the plague, is the smell of a jail, when
the prisoners have been long close and nastily kept; whereof we have
had, in our time, experience twice or thrice; when both the judges
that sat upon the jail, and numbers of those who attended the
business, or were present, sickened and died.’

“Sir John Pringle observes that ‘gaols have often been the cause of
malignant fevers;’ and he informs us that in the late Rebellion in
Scotland, above 200 men of one regiment were infected with the gaol
fever by some deserters brought from prisons in England.

“Dr. Lind, physician to the royal hospital at Haslar, near Portsmouth,
showed me, in one of the wards, a number of sailors ill of the gaol
fever, brought on board their ship by a man who had been discharged
from a prison in London. The ship was laid up on the occasion. That
gentleman, in his ‘Essay on the Health of Seamen,’ asserts that ‘the
source of infection to our armies and fleets are undoubtedly the
gaols; we can often trace the importers of it directly from them. It
often proves fatal in impressing men on the hasty equipment of a
fleet. The first English fleet sent last war to America lost by it
above 2000 men. In another place he assures us that the seeds of
infection were carried from the guard-ships into our squadrons; and
the mortality thus occasioned was greater than by all other diseases
or means of death put together.’

“It were easy to multiply instances of this mischief; but those I have
mentioned are, I presume, sufficient to show, even if no mercy were
due to prisoners, that the gaol distemper is a ‘national concern’ of
no small importance.”

“_Sewers._—Some gaols have no sewers or vaults; and in those that
have, if they be not properly attended to, they are, even to a
visitant, offensive beyond description; how noxious, then, to people
confined constantly in those prisons!

“One cause why the rooms in some prisons are so close is the
window-tax, which the gaolers have to pay; this tempts them to stop
the windows and stifle their prisoners.

“_Bedding._—In many gaols, and in most bridewells, there is no
allowance of _bedding_ or straw for prisoners to sleep on; and if by
any means they get a little, it is not changed for months together, so
that it is offensive and almost worn to dust. Some lie upon rags,
others upon bare floors. When I have complained of this to the
keepers, their justification has been: ‘the county allows no straw;
the prisoners have none but at my cost.’”

Since Howard succeeded in gaining national attention to the condition of prisoners, the evils of prison management have been removed. A large proportion of the prison population is taken from the worst regulated and most confined neighbourhoods, which have been the subject of examination; and, with the view to judge what might be effected by sanitary regulations, I have made frequent inquiries as to the effects of sanitary measures on the worst class of persons, the larger proportion of whom are taken from the worst neighbourhoods, that is, as to the effects of living in the same atmosphere, on a less expensive diet than that of the general labouring population, but provided with clean and tolerably well-ventilated places of work and sleeping-rooms, and where they are required to be cleanly in their persons.

I have obtained through Mr. Hill, the prison inspector of Scotland, an accurate return of the number of days which the prisoners had been absent from labour on the ground of ill health in the celebrated prison at Glasgow, where the separate system of confinement has been tried (Return No. 1); a similar return from the Edinburgh prison, (No. 2). I also obtained a careful examination of the amount of sickness prevalent amongst the prisoners at Salford prison, (No. 3). The average cost of the diets, (principally vegetable,) at Salford, varied from 1_s._ 4_d._ to 1_s._ 6_d._ per week; at Edinburgh, 1_s._ 9_d._ per week; and at Glasgow, 1_s._ 7_d._ per week. _Vide_ Appendix.

The medical practitioners, who are well acquainted with the general state of health of the population surrounding the prisons concur in vouching to the fact, upon their own knowledge, that the health of the prisoners is in general much higher than the health almost of any part of the surrounding population; that the prisoners, as a class, are below the average of health when they enter the prisons; that they come from the worst neighbourhoods; that many of them come from the lodging-houses, which, in those towns, as will be shown, are the constant seats of disease; that they are mostly persons of intemperate habits; that many of them come in in a state of disease from intemperance and bad habits; and notwithstanding the depressing influence of imprisonment, the effect of cleanliness, dryness, better ventilation, temperance, and simple food, is almost sufficient to prevent disease arising within the prison, and to put the prisoners in a better working condition at the termination than at the commencement of their imprisonment. At the Glasgow bridewell, the prisoners are weighed on their entrance and at their discharge, and it is found that, on the average, they gained in weight by their imprisonment.[33] At Edinburgh, there were instances of poor persons in a state of disease committed from motives of humanity to the prison, that they might be taken care of and cured. The tables are to be taken as showing imperfectly the comparative effects of the different circumstances; because, when a labourer is obliged to leave work he loses wages; and it is known of large classes of them, that they often work improvidently and injuriously to their chances of recovery by continuing at work in impaired health too long; the prisoner, on the contrary, by absence on the sick list, gains ease and exemption from slave labour; and the officers have constantly to contend against feigned sickness to avoid task-work and punishment. It should also be noted that a large proportion of the sickness of the prisoners is of a character that is excluded from all tables of insurance, from the benefit societies as being specially excluded from their benefits. The numbers imprisoned at the lower ages, or above 36 years of age, were too few to form any comparison:—

┌────────┬─────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ Average Annual Sickness of │ │ │ │ Male Prisoners in the │ Labourers and Operatives. │ ├────────┼─────────┬─────────┬─────────┼───────────┬───────────┬──────────┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ No. 5. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Average │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │duration of│ │ │ │ │ │ │ No. 4. │ Sickness │ No. 6. │ │ │ No. 1. │ No. 2. │ No. 3. │Employed in│ per annum │ Males of │ │ │ Glasgow │Edinburgh│ Salford │East-India │ of every │ Families │ │ │ Prison. │ Prison. │ Prison. │ Company’s │ person │ in Wynds │ │ │ │ │ │Warehouses.│employed in│ of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Cotton │Edinburgh.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ Factories │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │Lancashire.│ │ ├────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼───────────┼───────────┼──────────┤ │ AGE. │ Days & │ Days & │ Days & │ Days & │ Days & │ Days & │ │ │Decimals.│Decimals.│Decimals.│ Decimals. │ Decimals. │Decimals. │ │Under 16│ │ │ │ │ │ 3·5│ │ Years │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │16 to 21│ 3·05│ 4·01│ 3·10│ 4·02│ 4·42│ 2·3│ │21 to 26│ 1·83│ 2·04│ 1·64│ 5·40│ 4·91│ 5·1│ │26 to 31│ 2·65│ 2·33│ 2·72│ 4·49│ 6·88│ 11·0│ │31 to 36│ 2·83│ 3·10│ 2·63│ 4·55│ 3·85│ 8·3│ │36 to 41│ 9·00│ 5·10│ ·85│ 5·57│ 4·13│ 4·1│ │41 to 46│ ·49│ 2·75│ ·51│ 5·18│ 5·69│ 15·1│ │46 to 51│ │ │ │ 5·43│ 7·18│ 30·0│ │51 to 56│ │ │ │ 6·80│ 3·47│ 16·2│ │56 to 61│ │ │ │ 7·21│ 12·68│ 30·4│ │61 to 66│ │ │ │ 10·24│ │ 42·7│ │66 to 71│ │ │ │ 9·93│ │ 64·2│ │71 to 76│ │ │ │ 10·60│ │ 41·0│ │76 to 81│ │ │ │ 12·67│ │ 83·6│ └────────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────┴───────────┴───────────┴──────────┘