The annexed linear view of the numbers of deaths from the chief diseases during every month of two years in the metropolis will be of interest as showing the influence of the seasons, and especially of the winter, when there is the most cold, wet, and crowding.

In Scotland we have not the advantage of systematized registries of mortality or of the causes of mortality, and we are therefore unable to make the same comparisons as in England; yet so far as the records of the dispensaries serve, they are confirmatory of the returns with respect to the different rates of mortality in differently conditioned districts in England. Thus, in a report from Leith, it is stated that—

“Contagious febrile diseases of all kinds are met with in Leith, particularly typhus, which in certain seasons is prevalent to a great extent. The parts of the town in which it seems to prevail chiefly (so far as can be deduced from the records of the Leith Dispensary for the last five years) are the central and most crowded districts in which the number of cases amongst the poor during the last five years have been in the proportion of 1 to 6 of the whole population, while in other districts not so central in situation, but inhabited by persons of nearly the same class, the proportion has been not above 1 to 13 within these districts. One locality containing a population of 1579, has produced 433 cases of contagious fevers in general (of which 306 were of typhus) in dispensary practice, within five years, being in the ratio of 1 to 3⅖ of fevers in general, and 1 to 5⅙ of typhus to the gross population; of these 433 cases, 130 of all fevers, and 96 of typhus, occurred in the two narrow streets (St. Andrew’s-street and Giles’s-street) which bound the district to the north and south, the remainder in the narrow lanes and closes communicating with them. These may be regarded as the most unhealthy parts of the town.”

An impression is often prevalent that a heavy mortality is an unavoidable condition of all large towns, and of a town population in general. It has, however, been shown that, groups of cottages on a high hill, exposed to the most, salubrious breezes when cleanliness is neglected, are often the nests of fever and disease, as intense as the most crowded districts. The mortuary returns of particular districts (in the essentials of drainage, cleansing, and ventilation, to which it is practicable to make other districts approximate, and that too with reductions of existing charges), prove that a high degree of mortality does not invariably belong to the population of all towns, and probably not necessarily to any, even where the population is engaged in manufactures. The proportion of deaths appears in some of the suburbs of the metropolis (as at Hackney), and of Manchester and Leeds, to be lower than amongst the highest classes in two of the agricultural counties.

It appears from the report of Dr. d’Espine, one of the members of the Council of Health of Geneva, who has examined the records of the mortality prevalent amongst the population extra muros, as well as that in the city (which will hereafter be submitted to special notice), that the deaths were in the rural districts 1 in 39·3; whilst in the city they were 1 in 44·7 of the whole of the population in the year 1838. In the poorest and worst conditioned of the rural districts the proportions of the deaths were the greatest. In the year 1837 the deaths were in the poorest of the rural districts 1 in 38·6; in the intermediate district, 1 in 40·8; in the richest district, 1 in 53·2.

In comparison with the very high state of the chances of life in the county of Wilts, the city of Bath presents an example confirmatory of this view. The Rev. Whitwell Elwin has supplied the following return of the chances of life amongst the different classes in that city. Out of 616 cases of death in 1840, the results were as follow:—

The very high average chances of life amongst the middle classes, which is nearly the same as that of the farmers, &c. of the agricultural districts, is the fact adduced as most strongly proving the salubrity of the place.

“In making these returns,” says Mr. Elwin, “I have thrown out all visitors and occasional residents, and my knowledge of the locality, with the assistance of the clerk of the union, has enabled me to attain complete accuracy with respect to the gentry, and a close approximation to it in the remaining cases. The difference in the ages of these several classes presents to my mind a tolerably exact scale of the difference of their abodes. The large houses, the broad streets, looking almost invariably on one side or other upon parks or gardens or open country, the spacious squares, the crescents built upon the brows of the hills without a single obstruction to the pure air of heaven, give the gentry of Bath that superiority over other grades and other cities which their longevity indicates. And herein, it appears to me, consists the value of the return. It shows that the congregation of men is not of necessity unhealthy; nay, that towns, possessing as they do superior medical skill and readier access to advice, may, under favourable circumstances, have an advantage over the country. The situation of the tradesmen of Bath, inferior as it is to that of the gentry, is better than that of their own station in other places. The streets they chiefly inhabit, though with many exceptions, are wide, and swept by free currents of air, with houses large and well ventilated. The condition of the poor is worse than would be anticipated from the other portions of the town. They are chiefly located in low districts at the bottom of the valley, and narrow alleys and confined courts are very numerous. Yet even here we have an unquestionable advantage over most large towns. It was only yesterday that I was expressing my horror to a medical gentleman at some portions of the habitations of the poor, when he replied, that it excited little attention, because they were so much better than what was to be seen in other parts of the kingdom.

“Whatever influence occupation and other circumstances may have upon mortality, no one can inspect the registers without being struck by the deteriorated value of life in inferior localities, even where the inhabitants were the same in condition with those who lived longer in better situations. The average age of death among the gentlemen was as high as 60, till I came, at the conclusion, to a small but damp district, in which numerous cases of fever brought down the average to 54. So again with the shopkeepers, the average was reduced two by the returns from streets which, though inhabited by respectable men, were narrow in front and shut in at the back. The average among the labourers was greatly diminished by the returns from some notorious courts, and raised again in a still higher proportion by districts which appertained rather to the country than the town. Of three cases of centenarians, one of whom had attained the vast age of 106, two belonged to this favoured situation. Not but that great ages were to be found in the worst parts as in the best, or that particular streets did not in a measure run counter to the rule. Still, wherever I brought into opposition districts of considerable extent, I found the law more or less to obtain. Bath is a favourable town to institute the comparison, from presenting such marked contrasts in its houses, and the inquiry being little complicated by the presence of noxious trades, which in some towns would necessarily disturb every calculation of the kind. Even here a colony of shoemakers would bring down the average of its healthiest spot to the age of childhood. My attention was called to this circumstance by the clerk incidentally remarking that more shoemakers were married at his office, and were uniformly more dirty and ill-dressed, than any other class of persons. The proneness to marriage or concubinage in proportion to the degradation of the parties is notorious, and I anticipated from the fact an abundant offspring, afterwards to be carried off by premature disease. Accordingly I went with this view through several of the registers, and the result was, that while the average of death amongst the families of labourers and artisans in general was 24 and 25, that of shoemakers was only 14. Had the shoemakers been excluded from the former average, as for the purpose of this comparison they should have been, the disproportion would be some years greater.

“The deaths from fever and contagious diseases I found to be almost exclusively confined to the worst parts of the town. An epidemic small-pox raged at the end of the year 1837, and carried off upwards of 300 persons; yet of all this number I do not think there was a single gentleman, and not above two or three tradesmen. The residences of the labouring classes were pretty equally visited, disease showing here and there a predilection for particular spots, and settling with full virulence in Avon-street and its offsets. I went through the registers from the commencement, and observed that, whatever contagious or epidemic diseases prevailed,—fever, small-pox, influenza,—this was the scene of its principal ravages; and it is the very place of which every person acquainted with Bath would have predicted this result. Everything vile and offensive is congregated there. All the scum of Bath—its low prostitutes, its thieves, its beggars—are piled up in the dens rather than houses of which the street consists. Its population is the most disproportioned to the accommodation of any I have ever heard; and to aggravate the mischief, the refuse is commonly thrown under the staircase; and water more scarce than in any quarter of the town. It would hardly be an hyperbole to say that there is less water consumed than beer; and altogether it would be more difficult to exaggerate the description of this dreadful spot than to convey an adequate notion to those who have never seen it. A prominent feature in the midst of this mass of physical and moral evils is the extraordinary number of illegitimate children; the offspring of persons who in all respects live together as man and wife. Without the slightest objection to the legal obligation, the moral degradation is such that marriage is accounted a superfluous ceremony, not worth the payment of the necessary fees; and on one occasion, when it was given out that these would be dispensed with, upwards of 50 persons from Avon-street, who had lived together for years, voluntarily came forward to enter into a union. And thus it invariably happens in crowded haunts of sin and filth, where principle is obliterated, and where public opinion, which so often operates in the place of principle, is never heard; where, to say truth, virtue is treated with the scorn which in better society is accorded to vice. I have been rendered familiar with these places by holding a curacy in the midst of them for upwards of a year, and my duty as chaplain to the union, in visiting the friends of paupers or discharged paupers themselves, keep up the knowledge I then contracted.

“I think these facts supply us with important conclusions. Whether we compare one part of Bath with another or Bath with other towns, we find health rising in proportion to the improvement of the residences; we find morality, in at least a great measure, following the same law, and both these inestimable blessings within the reach of the legislature to secure. When viewed in this light, these investigations, so often distressing and disgusting, acquire dignity and importance.”

The suffering and expense of life prevalent in differently situated districts observed in this country, are consistent with the experience of the continent.

In a report prepared by M. Villermé, as the reporter of a committee of the Royal Academy of Medicine at Paris, appointed to investigate some statistical data on the mortality prevalent in that city, and the department of the Seine, several tables are given to show the proportions of deaths that occur in each of the several arrondissements. In the table on which the most reliance appears to be placed, the mortality in each arrondissement is exhibited as it occurs in the private residences. In the following table the arrondissements are arranged in the order of the proportions in which the houses are exempted from taxation, on the ground of the poverty of the inhabitants, beginning with the arrondissements where the exemptions are the fewest, where the houses are the largest and most valuable, and proceeding to those where the exemptions are most numerous, and the houses the least in size, as indicated by the value. The average of exempted houses, with slight exceptions, he considers a fair indication of the average condition of each arrondissement as compared with the other arrondissements. In this table I have included a column showing the deaths of persons from each arrondissement who die in the public hospitals and other places appropriated to the care of the sick. These tables perhaps comprise the whole of the mortality that occurs in that capital. I have added the proportions of deaths from cholera in each arrondissement, which followed in the highest and the lowest arrondissements the general law of mortality, with some irregularities in the intermediate arrondissements which I have not seen accounted for:—

It will be observed that in each table the mortality is the lowest in the three richest arrondissements (1, 2, and 3), and is the highest in the three arrondissements, which are positively the poorest, namely, the 8th, 9th, and 12th. Similar results were deduced from comparisons of the mortality prevalent in streets inhabited by different classes; and from comparisons of the different rates of mortality prevalent amongst persons of the same condition as to income, but residing in houses of favourable or unfavourable construction and situation.

If we could ascertain the rates of mortality formerly prevalent in the separate districts of each large town, it is probable we should find that the improvement in the average chances of life of the whole town has been raised principally by the improved chances in the districts where the streets have been widened, paved, and cleansed, and the houses enlarged and drained; and that the amount of sickness and chances of life in the inferior districts are as little altered as their general physical condition. The present condition of those parts of London where the average mortality is 1 in 28 annually, appears to be not dissimilar to the general condition of the whole metropolis about a century ago, which was said to be about 1 in 20, a rate still to be found in some of the most neglected streets.

Dr. Heberden, in an able paper which he wrote at the beginning of the present century, on the disappearance of several diseases in London, ascribes the fact, and the advance of the public health, to the improvements that have gradually taken place in the widening, paving, and cleansing the streets since the great conflagration. He observes that “the annual pestilential fever of Constantinople very much resembles that of our gaols and crowded hospitals,” and “is only called plague when attended with buboes and carbuncles.” He ascribes the exemption to “our change of manners, our love of cleanliness and ventilation, which have produced amongst us, I do not say an incapability, but a great inaptness any longer to receive it.” The examination of the disease prevalent, in the poorer districts, however, raises the question whether they have not, in the “pestilential fever by which they are ravaged,” any other than a type of the malady from which it is supposed the country is exempted. The fever itself is almost as severe in particular neighbourhoods and in unfavourable states of the weather, as it is stated to be in the bad quarters of Constantinople.

The like improvement in the public health that has followed the slow structural improvements in the best districts of the metropolis has been displayed in Paris, where some of the worst districts which remain in a condition not dissimilar to that in which the whole of Paris is described to have been, in closeness and filth, and where the chances of life have remained nearly in the same low condition. M. De Villermé, in proof of an improvement commensurate with the improvements that have been made in the condition of the streets and houses, and the habits of the inhabitants, cites a curious document of the date of the fourteenth century, namely, the register of a tax levied upon all assessable persons of Paris, when Philip-le-Bel knighted his eldest son, who afterwards succeeded him under the name of Louis the Xth. The persons assessed were housekeepers, manufacturers, merchants, masters of the different handicrafts, master jewellers, master masons, master upholsterers, haberdashers, confectioners, butchers, brewers, wine, corn, and cloth merchants, the heads of houses, amongst whom mortality in the present times would be slight compared with that prevalent amongst the lower classes. From the number of this class who are named and registered street by street by the parish priests, as having died between the date of the assessment and the date when the tax was levied, it appears that 232 out of 6042 died in thirteen months and a half, during a time which was not remarked for any extraordinary sickness. From hence it is inferred that the general annual mortality in Paris could not be less at the commencement of the 14th century than one-twentieth or a twenty-second part of the whole population; whereas in later times the general mortality has not been known to exceed one thirty-second part. The general mortality, therefore, or rather the mortality of a high and select class, was worse in the 14th century than the mortality in the worst districts in the 19th, where it was 1 in 24.

“But it will be said,” observes M. Villermé, “how can so dreadful a mortality be admitted to have taken place in a climate so salubrious as that of Paris? I confess that if, in order to justify that statement, I had nothing but the book of assessment of the year 1313, I should not have allowed myself at this distance of time to have made any use of the facts which are found recorded in the book of which I am speaking; but the accounts of the time inform us how much public hygiène was then neglected, and that in Paris particularly, the horrible filth of the streets was insupportable, so much were they encumbered with dirt of every kind.

“Some idea may be formed of the dirtiness of the streets of Paris, towards the end of the fourteenth century, from the words of an ordinance of Charles VI. issued in 1388, ‘And whereas the pavements of Paris are much injured and fallen into decay, so that in many places no horse or carriage can go without very great danger and inconvenience, and whereas this town has long been, and still is, full of dirt, rubbish, and ordure, which each person has left at his own door, so that it is a great horror, and a great displeasure to all persons of respectability and honour, and a great scandal and shame to this city, and a great grief and prejudice to the human beings dwelling in and frequenting the said city, who by the infection of the stinking mass of filth have fallen in times past into great illness and infirmities of body, and great mortality.’

“It must be borne in mind (many other facts prove it),” observes M. Villermé, “that the humble citizens of the present day, artisans for example, are for the most part much better off, as regards air, and those conveniencies which preserve life than persons of much greater wealth were in former times in this capital.” From a passage in Ulpien, it is estimated that the chances of life is in ancient Rome as deduced from the experience of a select class was 30 years.

He states, that the first agent to improvement is changing the infected air that they inspired in Paris for air that is pure. In the recent progress of the same change it has been observed there, as in this country, that parts of streets better paved and cleansed are marked by the comparative infrequency of disease.

Yet how much remains to be done is shown by the fact that in Paris, with a drier and more salubrious climate, the mortality is still greater than in London; and that the advantages of which M. Villermé justly speaks so highly, are distributed with extreme inequality, is apparent from his tables, which show that in one district the mortality has diminished to 1 in 52; whilst in another it remains as great as 1 in 26 annually. So we have seen that in London it ranges from 1 in 28 to 1 in 57; and it will be seen that in the township of Manchester, a population of nearly 80,000, one twenty-eighth are swept away annually, whilst, in a favoured suburban district, no more than one sixty-third part die.

I have been favoured by M. Ducpetiaux, the Inspector-general of prisons in Belgium, with the copy of a report on an inquiry similar to the present, into the condition of the labouring population in Brussels. I have submitted an extract from it in the Appendix, descriptive of the general condition in which their residences were found. When the proportion which the well-conditioned houses of that city bear to the great mass is considered, it will not excite surprise to those who have traversed the poorer districts to find that the average mortality amongst the whole population was, in the year 1840, 1 in 24. In 1829, it appears to have been 1 in 21.

In illustration of the moral and social effects to be anticipated from measures for the removal of the causes of pestilence amongst the labouring classes, and for the increase of their duration of life, concurrently with an increase of the population, I refer to the effects experienced in Geneva from the like improvements effected during the lapse of centuries. That city is, so far as I am aware, the only one in Europe in which there is an early and complete set of registers of marriages, births, and deaths. These registries were established in the year 1549, and are viewed as pre-appointed evidences to civil rights, and are kept with great care. This registration includes the name of the disease which has caused the death, entered by a district physician who is charged by the State with the inspection of every person who dies within his district. A second table is made up from certificates setting forth the nature of the disease, with a specification of the symptoms, and observations required to be made by the private physician who may have had the care of the deceased. These registries have been the subject of frequent careful examinations. It appears from them that the progress of the population intra muros of that city has been as follows:—

It is proved in a report by M. Edward Mallet, one of the most able that have been made from these registries, that this increase of the population has been followed by an increase in the probable duration of life in that city:—

The progression of the population and the increased duration of life had been attended by a progression in happiness: as prosperity advanced marriages became fewer and later;^[20] the proportion of births were reduced, but greater numbers of the infants born were preserved;^[21] and the proportion of the population in manhood became greater. In the early and barbarous periods, the excessive mortality was accompanied by a prodigious fecundity. In the ten last years of the 17th century, a marriage still produced five children and more; the probable duration of life attained was not 20 years, and Geneva had scarcely 17,000 inhabitants. Towards the end of the 18th century there was scarcely three children to a marriage, and the probabilities of life exceeded 32 years. At the present time a marriage only produces 2¾ children; the probability of life is 45^[22] years, and Geneva, which exceeds 27,000 in population, has arrived at a high degree of civilization and of “prospérité matérielle.” In 1836 the population appeared to have attained its summit; the births barely replaced the deaths.

M. Mallet observes, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish the different causes, and the different degrees of intensity of each of the causes that have tended to produce this result. It is, however, attributed generally to the advance in the condition of all classes; to the medical science of the public health being better understood and applied; to larger and better and cleaner dwellings; more abundant and healthy food; the cessation of the great epidemics which, from time to time, decimated the population; the precautions taken against famine; and better regulated public and private life. As an instance of the effects of regimen in the preservation of life, he mentions that, in an establishment for the care of female orphans taken from the poorest classes, out of 86 reared in 24 years, one only had died These orphans were taken from the poor. The average mortality on the whole population would have been six times as great.^[23]

An impression of an undefined optimism is frequently entertained by persons who are aware of the wretched condition of a large portion of the labouring population; and this impression is more frequently entertained than expressed, as the ground of inaction for the relief of the prevalent misery from disease, that its ravages form the natural or positive check, or, as Dr. Short terms it, a “terrible corrective” to the pressure of population on the means of subsistence.

In the most crowded districts, which have been the subject of the present inquiry, the facts do not justify this impression; they show that the theory is inapplicable to the present circumstances of the population. How erroneous the inferences are in their unrestrained generality, which assume that the poverty or the privation which is sometimes the consequence,—is always the cause, of the disease, will have been seen from such evidence as that adduced from Glasgow and Spitalfields, proving that the greater proportion of those attacked by disease are in full work at the time; and the evidence from the fever hospitals, that the greatest proportion of the patients are received in high bodily condition. If wages be taken as the test of the means of subsistence, it may be asked how are such facts to be reconciled as these, that at a time when wages in Manchester were 10s. per head weekly on all employed in the manufactories, including children or young persons in the average, so that if three or four members of a family were employed, the wages of a family would be 30s. or 40s. weekly, the average chances of life to all of the labouring classes were only 17 years; whilst in the whole of Rutlandshire, where the wages were certainly not one half that amount, we find the mean chances of life to every individual of the lowest class were 37 years? Or, to take another instance, that whilst in Leeds, where, according to Mr. Baker’s report, the wages of the families of the worst-conditioned workers were upwards of 1l. 1s. per week, and the chances of life amongst the whole labouring population of the borough were only 19 years; whilst in the county of Wilts, where the labourer’s family would not receive much more than half that amount of wages in money, and perhaps not two-thirds of money’s worth in money and produce together, we find the average chances of life to the labouring classes 32 years?

If, in the most crowded districts, the inference is found to be erroneous, that the extent of sickness and mortality is indicative of the pressure of population on the means of subsistence, so is the inference that the ravages act to the extent supposed, as a positive check to the increase of the numbers of the population. In such districts the fact is observable, that where the mortality is the highest, the number of births are more than sufficient to replace the deaths, however numerous they may be.

This fact is shown in the following returns from the eight townships which comprehend Manchester and its suburbs, made by the Statistical Society of that town. But I believe the results would be more strongly manifest if the registration of the births and of the residences of the mothers were complete. I have reason to believe that in the lower districts many births, and especially illegitimate births, escape registration, and that many take place in hospitals and workhouses out of the township; whilst in the better conditioned districts the registration is comparatively accurate. I have caused attempts to be made in several of the worst neighbourhoods in Bath and other places, to ascertain with greater precision the actual number of births; but from the migratory character of the population and other circumstances, the efforts failed to do more than to confirm the impression that many had hitherto escaped registration.

The proportion of mortality in the several townships denotes with little variation the state of the streets and houses, and the condition of the inhabitants. The township of Broughton is inhabited almost exclusively by the upper classes, who are connected with Manchester. The houses are new, spacious, and well built; the site is elevated, and offers great facilities for drainage. The township of Cheetham and Crumpsall is also inhabited for the most part by the upper classes, who live in peculiarly good houses, with a superior natural drainage. There is a proportion of the working population resident in this district whose houses are well built, and also favourably situated for drainage. The condition of the habitations of a large proportion of the labouring population in Manchester has already been described.

It will be observed also that the moral as well as the sanitary influences have a coincidence in the larger proportion of the illegitimate births in the worst conditioned districts. In the best conditioned districts the great majority of illegitimate births belong almost exclusively to the more dissipated of the labouring classes who inhabit them.

In the ten registration districts of Leeds the mortality prevalent in them varies coincidently with their physical condition, and the recklessness and immorality as shown in the proportion of illegitimate births, increases in a greater proportion than the mortality; and in this instance also, as in most others, if the registration were more accurate, the proportion of both legitimate and illegitimate births would be still closer to the deaths in the worst conditioned districts.

We have seen that in the lowest districts of Manchester of 1000 children born, more than 570 will have died before they attain the fifth year of their age. In the lowest districts of Leeds the infant mortality is similar. This proportion of mortality M. Mallet designates as the case of a population but little advanced in civilization, ravaged by epidemics—a population in which the “influences on the lower ages are murderous, but where the great mortality in infancy is compensated by a high degree of fecundity. It is the case of the population in many large towns, especially in past ages.” But whilst in Manchester, where one twenty-eighth of the whole population is annually swept away, the births registered amount to 1 in 26 of the population; in the county of Rutland, where the proportion of deaths is 1 in 52 of the population, the proportion of births, as shown by an average of three years, (by a registration which I apprehend is more complete than in the lower districts of Manchester,) is only 1 to 33 of the population.

The increase of births after a pestilence has been long observed; the coincidence of an increase of births in a proportion to the high rate of mortality in the worst districts has frequently been noted on the continent. M. Quetelet has observed the fact in several countries and gives instances from which the following are selected:—

He states that he had often been tempted to attribute these discrepancies to a faulty census of the population; but more attentive researches had induced him to believe that this state of things is dependent on local causes.

M. Bossi, in the Statisque du Department le l’Ain, gives a striking example of the effect of the locality. With a view to study the influences of locality, he divided the department into four portions; and from documents collected during the years 1812, 1813, and 1814, he obtained the following results:—

Notwithstanding the depression of many districts, and the decrease of health amongst the classes in the manufacturing towns from which a large proportion of conscripts are taken, the annual proportions of deaths appear to have decreased.

M. Quetelet’s returns show that so far as the present state of information can be relied upon, the same law is observed in general action, not only in provinces but in whole countries throughout Europe. It is confirmed by extensive experience occurring in the new world. The trustworthiness of the registration of births and deaths in Mexico are attested by the examination and use of them by Humboldt, and have been the subject of legislative proceedings. The ratios of births and deaths in the province of Guanaxuato have been referred to by Sir F. d’Ivernois, in illustration of the position that pestilence does not check the progress of population. A large proportion of the inferior Mexican population are reported to “have converted the gifts of heaven to the sustenance of disgusting misery.” It is reported of this populace that it is “half clothed, idle, stained all over with vices; in a word, hideous and known under the name of leperos, lepers, on account of the malady to which their filth and bad diet subjects them. Nothing can exceed the state of brutality and superstition to which they have been subjected.”^[24]

The fecundity of this population, sunk in the lowest vice and misery amidst the means of the highest abundance, was greater than amidst any other whole population in Christendom;^[25] they stood thus in 1825 and 1826:—

They are much mistaken who imagine that a similarly conditioned population is not to be found in this country; it is found in parts of the population of every large town; the description of the Mexican populace will recall features characteristic of the wretched population in the worst parts of Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, and Bath, and the lodging-houses throughout the country.

Seeing that the banana (with the plantain or maize) is the chief food of the inferior Mexican populace, their degraded condition has been ascribed to the fertility of that plant, as the degradation of a large proportion of our population has been ascribed to the use of the potatoe, whereas a closer examination would have shown the fact of large classes living industriously and virtuously chiefly on simple food, and preferring saving money to better living; and that, if a high and various meat diet were the cause of health, industry, and morality, those virtues should stand highest amongst the population of the lodging-houses, for more meat and varied food is consumed in those abodes of pestilence than amongst the industrious population of the village. In Manchester, where we have seen that the chances of life are only 17 years, the proportions and varieties of meat consumed by the labouring classes, are as their greater amount of wages compared with the meat consumed by the labouring classes in Rutlandshire, whose mean chances of life are 38 years.^[26] But I apprehend that the superior health in Rutlandshire is as little ascribable to their simpler food as the greater amount of disease amidst the town population is ascribable to the greater proportion of meat which is there consumed. It is probable indeed that the standard of vitality in Rutlandshire might be raised still higher by improvements in the quality of their food. There are abundant reasons to render it desirable that the food of the population should be varied, but it is shown that banishing the potatoe or discouraging its use, or introducing any other food, will not banish disease.

By means of the last census and the last year’s completed registration of deaths and births in England, I am enabled to show that there has been an increase of the population from births alone in those parts of the country where the proportionate mortality is the greatest.

Taking the 42 counties as I find them arranged in Mr. Porter’s paper on the census; dividing them into three parts, viz., the 14 counties where there has been the least proportionate mortality, the 14 counties where the proportion of mortality has been the greatest, and the 14 counties where the proportion of mortality has been intermediate, I find the results as to the proportionate increase of births to the increase of deaths to be as follows:—

The following are the proportions of births and deaths to the population in 1840, and the total rate of increase of population between the years 1831 and 1841:—

We here find that in the 14 counties where proportionate mortality has been the least, the 184 deaths in 10,000 persons are made up by the 297 births; hence 113, or more than 1 per cent., is added by new births to the existing population. In the 14 intermediate counties where the deaths on every 10,000 persons increase to 208, there the deaths are again made up by 302 births, and 94, or close upon 1 per cent., are again added to the population. In the 14 counties where the increase of the population is the greatest, the deaths in every 10,000 persons are increased to 259, but here also we find that the births are again sufficient to make up for the deaths; they are 348, and increase the population by 89, or less than 1 per cent.

Hence, if the number of births in each 10,000 persons of the 14 counties where the mortality has been the greatest had taken place amongst every 10,000 persons of the counties where the mortality has been the least, then the increase of population in these latter by births, instead of being 113, would have been 164.^[27]

I must again observe that the registration of births in the most populous town districts, where the mortality is greatest, is the least perfect. The excess of births over deaths may really be taken to be greater than shown in the returns from the districts where the mortality is the greatest.

The estimated increase of population in England in the year 1840, as compared with 1839, is 190,460. In the same period it appears that the births exceeded the deaths by 143,178. The difference between these two amounts, or 47,282, may be considered as the extent of emigration to England, together with the cases of births not registered. To whatever extent emigration takes place from England, there must of course have been a proportionate immigration from other places to make up the increase of population beyond the apparent increase from births.

It is observed in some of the worst conditioned of the town districts that the positive numbers of the natives of the aboriginal stock continually diminishes, and that the vacancy as well as the increase is made up by immigration from the healthier district. In a late enumeration of the settled inhabitants of the labouring classes in the lower parts of Westminster, it appeared that not more than one-third of them were natives of London. If inquiry had been made as to whether their parents were natives, it would probably have been found that still fewer had inhabited the district for more than one generation.

Simple enumerations of the numbers of a population are of themselves but imperfect means for judging of its progression in strength. That is best shown in the increased proportions of the adults, who are of the age and strength and skill for productive industry, in the extended period during which each adult labourer occupies his post.

M. Mallet bears testimony that the experience of Geneva is confirmatory of the important rule, that the strength of a people does not depend on the absolute number of its population, but on the relative number of those who are of the age and strength for labour. It is proved that the real and productive value of the population has there increased in a much greater proportion than the increase in the absolute number of the population. The absolute number of the population has only doubled, in the instance of Geneva, during three centuries; but the value of the population has more than doubled upon the purely numerical increase of the population. In other words, a population of 27,000, in which the probability of life is 40 years for each individual, is more than twice as strong for the purposes of production as a population of 27,000 in which the probability or value of life is only 20 years for each individual.

The important general fact of the proportion of adult physical strength to the increased duration of life, or improved sanitary condition of the individuals, is verified by the examinations of the individuals of different classes. M. Villermé states that, the difference of strength between classes such as those in which we have seen that the value of life differs, is well known to the officers engaged in recruiting the army, but no one had collected the facts to determine the precise difference. The time allowed to M. Villermé only enabled him to do so at Amiens. The result was, that the men of from 20 to 21 years of age were found the more frequently unfit for the trade of arms from their stature, constitution, and health, as they belonged to the poorer classes of the manufacturing labourers. In order to obtain 100 men fit for military service, it was necessary to have as many as 343 men of the poorer classes; whilst 193 conscripts sufficed of the classes in better circumstances. Analogous facts were observed in the greater part of the towns in France in which he conducted his official investigations.^[28]

In the evidence of recruiting officers, collected under the Factory Commission of Inquiry, it was shown that fewer recruits of the proper strength and stature for military service are obtainable now than heretofore from Manchester. I have been informed that of those labourers now employed in the most important manufactories, whether natives or migrants to that town, the sons who are employed at the same work are generally inferior in stature to their parents. Sir James M’Grigor, the Director-general of the Army Medical Board, stated to me the fact, that “A corps levied from the agricultural districts in Wales, or the northern counties of England, will last longer than one recruited from the manufacturing towns from Birmingham, Manchester, or near the metropolis.” Indeed, so great and permanent is the deterioration, that out of 613 men enlisted, almost all of whom came from Birmingham and five other neighbouring towns, only 238 were approved for service.

The chances of life of the labouring classes of Spitalfields are amongst the lowest that I have met with, and there it is observed of weavers, though not originally a large race, that they have become still more diminutive under the noxious influences to which they are subject. Dr. Mitchell, in his report on the condition of the hand-loom weavers, adduces evidence on this point. One witness well acquainted with the class states, “They are decayed in their bodies; the whole race of them is rapidly descending to the size of Liliputians. You could not raise a grenadier company amongst them all. The old men have better complexions than the young.” Another witness who says there were once men as well made in the weaver trade as any other, “recollects the Bethnal Green and Spitalfields regiment of volunteers during the war as good-looking bodies of men, but doubts if such could be raised now.” Mr. Duce concurs in the fact of the deterioration of their size and appearance within the last 30 years, and attributes it to bad air, bad lodging, bad food, “which causes the children to grow up an enfeebled and diminutive race of men.” (Vide Evidence of the Medical Officers of the District, ante.)

This depressing effect of adverse sanitary circumstances on the labouring strength of the population, and on its duration, is to be viewed with the greatest concern, as it is a depressing effect on that which most distinguishes the British people, and which it were a truism to say constitutes the chief strength of the nation—the bodily strength of the individuals of the labouring class. The greater portion of the wealth of the nation is derived from the labour obtained by the application of this strength, and it is only those who have had practically the means of comparing it with that of the population of other countries who are aware how far the labouring population of this country is naturally distinguished above others. There is much practical evidence to show that this is not a mere illusion of national vanity, and in proof of this I might adduce the testimony of some of the most eminent employers of large numbers of labourers, whose conclusions are founded on experience in directing the work of labourers from the chief countries in Europe, e. g., Mr. William Lindley, the civil engineer, engaged in the superintendence of the formation of the new railway between Hamburgh and Berlin, found it expedient to import as the foremost labourers for the execution of that work a number of the class of English labourers called navigators. These were recently employed in pile-driving at wages of 5s. per diem, or more than double the amount of wages paid to the German labourers. The German directors were surprised, and remonstrated at the enormously high wages paid to the English labourers; when the engineer directed their attention to the quantity of work performed within a given time, and showed that the wages produced more than amongst the native labourers. English labourers of the same class have been imported to take the foremost labour in the execution of the railways in progress from Havre to Paris, their work at very high wages being found cheaper than the work even of the Norman labourers. Skill and personal strength are combined in an unusually high degree in this class of workmen, but the most eminent employers of labour agree that it is strength of body, combined with strength of will, that gives steadiness and value to the artisan and common English labourer.

Nor is such experience confined to one branch of industry. In the heaviest works of the manufactories on the continent the strength and energy of the English artisan puts him in advance of all others.

Mr. J. Thomson, of Clitheroe, in treating of a question affecting the branch of industry, cotton-printing, in England, observes:—

“This limited production, in proportion to the hands employed,” in France, “has a deeper source than in styles which may be varied, and simplified, and changed at pleasure. It is to be found in the character and habits of the people, which cannot be changed or moulded at the will of a task-master; nor can an English day’s work be had in France for an English day’s wages. In 1814, I saw France before she had time to profit by the industrial skill and improvements of England; again in 1817, and in 1824, when I examined with anxious care, during a prolonged stay, the grounds of the prevailing apprehension, that our manufacturing greatness was declining, and that the cheap labour of France would more than compensate her many disadvantages. I returned home with the conviction, since, and now again confirmed, that the labour of Alsace, the best and cheapest in France, is dearer than the labour of Lancashire. I would not aver that an English workman would perform twice the work of a workman of the same class in France, but of this I feel assured, from frequent personal observation of their habits, and from long and confidential intercourse with their intelligent and enlightened manufacturers, that the advantage is more than twofold on the side of England, and that the true result is not to be obtained by comparisons between individuals, or even classes of workmen, but in the comparative aggregate industry of large establishments, or a whole population.

“Of this difference the intelligent witnesses, who gave evidence in 1835, before the French Commission of Inquiry into their prohibitory system, were fully aware, and with some allowances for that natural, excusable, and perhaps commendable nationality on such a subject, they did justice to the superior persevering energy of the English workman, whose enduring, untiring, savage industry, surpasses that of every other manufacturing country I have visited, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland not excepted.”

The noxious agencies not only impair the strength of the labouring community, but, as will be further shown, they tend also to shorten the period of its exercise. This effect will be more apparent when considering merely the pecuniary burdens of the excess of orphanage and premature widowhood, apart from the loss of protection and the misery which it causes. I shall here only observe, as to the depressing effects assumed from the admitted tendencies of an increase of population, that the fact is, that hitherto, in England, wages, or the means of obtaining the necessaries of life for the whole mass of the labouring community, have advanced, and the comforts within the reach of the labouring classes have increased with the late increase of population. This may be verified by reference to various evidence, and amongst others to that contained in Sir F. Eden’s examinations of the wages and modes of subsistence of the agricultural labourers in his day, and we have evidence of this advance even in many of the manufacturing districts now in a state of severe depression. For example, an eminent manufacturer in Lancashire, stated to me in November ultimo—“That the same yarn which cost my father 12d. per lb. to make in 1792, all by machinery, now costs only 2d. per lb.; paying then only 4s. 4d. per hand wages weekly, now 8s. 8d. or more; yet those wages amounted then to 5½d. per lb., and notwithstanding the higher wages, now, to only 1d. per lb.”