The prices of provisions were, during the first period, as high as now, and the cost of clothing 30 or 40 per cent. higher.

The more closely the subject of the evils affecting the sanitary condition of the labouring population is investigated the more widely do their effects appear to be ramified. The pecuniary cost of noxious agencies is measured by data within the province of the actuary, by the charges attendant on the reduced duration of life, and the reduction of the periods of working ability or production by sickness; the cost would include also much of the public charge of attendant vice and crime which come within the province of the police, as well as the destitution which comes within the province of the administrators of relief. Of the pecuniary effects, including the cost of maintenance during the preventible sickness, any estimate approximating to exactness could only be obtained by very great labour, which does not appear to be necessary.

To whatever extent the probable duration of the life of the working-man is diminished by noxious agencies, I repeat a truism in stating that to some extent so much productive power is lost; and in the case of destitute widowhood and orphanage, burdens are created and cast either on the industrious survivors belonging to the family, or on the contributors to the poor’s rates during the whole of the period of the failure of such ability. With the view to judge of the extent to which such burdens are at present cast upon the poor’s rates, I have endeavoured to ascertain the average age at which death befell the heads of those families of children who with the mothers have been relieved on the ground of destitution, in eight of the unions where the average age of the mortality prevalent amongst the several classes of the community has been ascertained.

The workmen who belong to sick-clubs and benefit-societies generally fix the period of their own superannuation allowances at from 60 to 65 years of age. I see no reason to doubt that by the removal of noxious agencies not essential to their trades; by sanitary measures affecting their dwellings, combined with improvements in their own habits, the period of ability for productive labour might be extended to the whole of the labouring class.

The actual duration of the ability for labour will vary with the nature of the work, though there can be little doubt that the variations under proper precautions would be much less than those which now take place. From the information received in respect to the employment of tailors in large numbers, it is evident that the average period of the working ability of that class might be extended at least ten years by improvements as to the places of work alone. The experience which might serve to indicate the extent of practicable improvement is at present narrow and scattered. The chief English insurance tables, such as the Northampton and Carlisle tables, are made up apparently from the experience of a population, subject probably to a greater or less extent to the noxious influences which are shown to be removable. By the Carlisle table, however, the probability of life to every person who has attained the age of twenty-one—the age for marriage—would be 40 years, or 40·75. By the Swedish tables, which are frequently applied to the insurance of the labouring classes, it would be 38·0. The observations that have been made on the subject, show that marriage improves rather than diminishes the probability of life. Where the duration of life is reduced by the nature of the employment below the usual average, by so much the widowhood may be considered as increased, as also the orphanage of their children. As labouring men generally marry early in life, their wives have ceased to bear children before they have reached fifty, so that the great mass of orphanage may be assigned to the consequence of premature death. The following table shows the average ages at which the deaths occurred of the fathers of the widows’ orphan children who are in receipt of relief in the following unions. The average includes the cases of all who died at whatever ages, whether above or below sixty:—

This premature widowhood and orphanage is the source of the most painful descriptions of pauperism—the most difficult to deal with; it is the source of a constant influx of the independent into the pauperised and permanently dependent classes. The widow, where there are children, generally remains a permanent charge; re-marriages amongst those who have children are very rare; in some unions they do not exceed one case in twenty or thirty. By the time the children are fit for labour and cease to require the parents’ attention, the mothers frequently become unfit for earning their own livelihood, or habituated to dependence, and without care to emerge from it. Even where the children are by good training and education fitted for productive industry, when they marry, the early familiarity with the parochial relief makes them improvident, and they fall back upon the poor’s rates on the lying-in of their wives, on their sickness, and for aid on every emergency. In every district the poor’s rolls form the pedigrees of generations of families thus pauperized. The total number of orphan children on account of whose destitution relief was given from the poor’s rates in the year ended Lady-day, 1840, was 112,000.

The numbers of widows chargeable to the poor’s rates was in those unions at that period 43,000. The following abstract of the returns from the eight unions selected exhibit the proportions who become chargeable at different periods of the head of the family.

Of the whole number it appears that upwards of 1764 became chargeable by premature deaths. If the same rule obtains in the other unions, which could only be ascertained by a very long and expensive inquiry, then nearly 27,000 cases of premature widowhood, and more than 100,000 cases of orphanage may be ascribed to removable causes. The chief effects or the chief of the diseases which appear as consequents to the circumstances under which the labouring population of the several districts have been described as living, and under which the fathers of the orphan children above enumerated have died, are set forth in the following table:—

As an example of the mode in which the causes of premature deaths fall, and of the burdens they entail in many districts, I submit a return of the whole of the cases of widowhood on the pauper rolls of the parish of Alston and Garrigill, Cumberland, the parish in which are situate the lodging-houses described in the evidence collected by Dr. Mitchell.

A complete analysis of the whole of the causes contributory to the premature mortality displayed in this group of cases would be a work of much labour, and would in nowise affect the soundness of the conclusions derivable from other sources, that a large amount, and probably the great mass of it, is preventible.

It would, for instance, be difficult to decide the precise term of years of life cut short by the effects of the lodging-houses, in producing or aggravating other tendencies to consumption; but the information possessed by persons who have made themselves acquainted with the effects of impure air enables them to pronounce with certainty that the habitual exposure of a body of men to such noxious influences must be attended by a diminution of several years of the definite standard of life. Of the 31 deaths of miners below 60 years of age, from diseases of the respiratory organs, enumerated in the above return, a part of the causes may be attributable to their occupation, a part to the external circumstances of residence and connected habits. Now we have examples of the separate advantages attendant on the removal of both causes of disease I adduce the following information, obtained through Sir John Walsham, with relation to the effects of an improvement in the external circumstances of the workmen as to residences.

Captain Harland, the chairman of the Reeth union, York (North Riding), in a communication to Sir John Walsham, states, that he has been anxious to ascertain as correctly as possible, first, the average duration of life among the mining population of the respective parishes in that district, and how far it appeared to be affected by their general habits as well as by the state of their domiciles; and he gives the following results:—

“By a careful examination of the parish registers, I find that in the last seven years there have died in—

“The prevailing diseases throughout the whole district are bronchial affections and rheumatism, which may generally be attributed to exposure to cold and rain after leaving the close, warm atmosphere of the mine.

“The miners’ dwellings in Marrick are small thatched cottages, situated very near their work; they are consequently less exposed to wet and cold on their way home, but (although dry and kept tolerably clean) from the want of room and proper ventilation, the inmates are more liable to contagious disorders than the more comfortably lodged miners in the parish of Grinton. In Arkendale the houses are of a somewhat better description, but the drainage is imperfect; the habits of the people filthy and intemperate; cutaneous disorders very common; and they are frequently the victims of typhus and other malignant fevers.

“In the parish of Grinton the houses are of a decidedly superior description. Forty years ago they were mostly thatched with ling or heath; a thatched house is now rarely seen. The miners are all comfortably lodged, generally well clothed, clean, and orderly in their habits; and I have no doubt to these causes may be attributed the great difference between the mortality in this parish and that of Arkendale in the same period.

“In Muker the mortality, in proportion to its population, has been nearly the same as in Arkendale; but many of the miners work occasionally in coal-mines, are more exposed to storms, by reason of their work being at a greater distance from their dwellings; and those dwellings are also of a description inferior to those of the other townships in the parish of Grinton. From these circumstances I infer that the average duration of a lead-miner’s life, and his greater freedom from disease, have increased in proportion to the increased airiness and increased convenience of his dwelling.”

I have already referred to the example cited by Dr. Barham of the health of the miners in one mine, the Dolcoath mine, in the parish of Camborne, in Cornwall, where great attention is paid to obviate agencies injurious to the miners. Care is there taken in respect to ventilation in the mines. “The ventilation in Dolcoath is particularly good, and the men are healthier than in most other mines; there are more old miners.” Care is taken for the prevention of accidents. “Our ladders,” says one of the witnesses examined by Dr. Barham, “are about two fathoms and a half in length, generally with staves one foot apart. We use oak staves; old ship oak we find the best. We formerly used the hafts of the picks and other tools, but found these unsafe, the wood being sleepy and flawed, and sometimes breaking off in a moment, without having shown any outward sign of unsoundness. Iron staves, besides being at times very slippery, are apt to be corroded, so as to cut the hand. We have had no accidents on our footways for a long time.” They have introduced the safety fuse, and the witness says:—“Very few accidents now arise from explosions;” “they used to happen frequently formerly.” Care is taken of the miners on quitting the mines; hence, instead of issuing on the bleak hill side, and receiving beer in a shed, to prevent chill and exhaustion, they issue from their underground labour into a warm room, where well-dried clothes are ready for them, and warm water, and even baths are supplied from the steam furnace, and, in the instance of this mine, a provision of hot beef-soup instead of beer is ready for them in another room. The honour of having made this change is stated to be due to the Right Hon. Lady Basset, on the suggestion of Dr. Carlyon. “Hence in this mine,” says Dr. Barham, “we may fairly attribute to the combination of beneficial arrangements just noticed that in Dolcoath, where 451 individuals are employed underground, only two have died within the last three years of miners’ consumption, a statement which could not, I believe, be made with truth nor be nearly approached in respect of an equal number of miners during the same term in any other Cornish district.” The sick-club of the mine “is comparatively rich, having a fund of 1500l.”

When “care” is mentioned as taken for sanitary measures, it is to be remembered that it is care only at the outset, and that when in habitual action the care required is really less, and the measures should be characterized as means for avoiding care and trouble and diminishing pecuniary loss.

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.

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.

“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 2000l. 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:—

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 40s. 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.