The Project Gutenberg eBook of Report on an Inquiry Into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain

Table showing the Sickness experienced by 334 Persons, from 10th November, 1840, to 10th November, 1841, in some of the Wynds and Closes of Edinburgh, compared with the Sickness experienced in the Edinburgh Prison, by the East India Company’s Labourers, and by the Members of Benefit Societies, as shown in the Highland Society’s Tables.

Age.	Females.		Closes and Wynds.	Prison of Edinburgh.	Males.		Closes and Wynds.	Prison of Edinburgh.	East India Company’s Labourers.	Highland Society.		Closes and Wynds.		Prison of Edinburgh.
Age.	No. of Persons.	Actual Sickness, Closes and Wynds of Edinburgh	Average duration of Sickness per Annum for every Female.	Average duration of Sickness per Annum for every Female.	No. of Persons.	Actual Sickness, Closes and Wynds of Edinburgh	Average duration of Sickness per Annum for every Male.	Average duration of Sickness per Annum for every Male.	Average duration of Sickness per Annum for every Male.	Age.	Average duration of Sickness per Annum for every Man, as shown by Tables of	Deaths.		Deaths.
Years.		Days.	Days and Decimals.	Days and Decimals.		Days.	Days and Decimals.	Days and Decimals.	Days and Decimals.	Years.	Days and Decimals.	M.	F.	M.	F.
Under 12	12	98	8·1		6	21	3·5					1
12 to 16	19	244	12·8	·90	21	49	2·3	1·23		21	4·0
16 to 21	19	112	5·9	·60	19	98	5·1	3·10	4·02	46	7·0			1
21 to 26	18	273	15·1	2·87	7	77	11·0	1·64	5·40	57	14·0		2
26 to 31	23	215	9·3	2·90	16	133	8·3	2·72	4·49	63	21·0
31 to 36	12	133	11·0	2·01	17	70	4·1	2·63	4·55	65	30·8
36 to 41	30	199	6·6	1·17	19	287	15·1	·85	5·57	66	37·8
41 to 46	9	84	9·3	8·25	13	393	30·0	·51	5·18	67	46·2		1
46 to 51	11	477	43·3	·93	15	243	16·2	2·31	5·43	68	56·0			1
51 to 56	5	81	16·2	2·21	5	152	30·4	8·71	6·80	69	63·0			1
56 to 61	10	71	7·1	·00	9	385	42·7	13·09	7·21	70	70·0	1
61 to 66	5	56	11·2	·00	5	321	64·2	4·27	10·24
66 to 71	1	0	·0	·00	2	82	41·0	·00	9·93
71 to 76	2	365	182·5	·00	3	251	83·6	·00	10·60
76 to 81	1	35	35·	·00				18·25	12·67					1
Total.	177	2,443	13·8	1·9	157	2,562	16·3	2·4				2	3	4

The Commissioners of Sewers appointed to superintend the execution of the Act of Victoria, passed for the protection of the public health, which requires that every inhabited tenement shall be provided with proper means of drainage, and cleansing, and the removal of refuse, have caused a survey to be made of the houses and tenements in—[court or street, as the case may be]. On this survey it appears that your house, with others in the same place, are without the requisites required by law; that they are without proper sewers, without drainage from the house, and without water or proper means for the constant removal of night-soil, or conveniences for cleansing.

By the section of the Act the several requisites hereunder described are directed to be provided and completed within months after this date.

The Commissioners have directed tenders for contracts upon specifications to be taken for the execution of the required works, under a civil engineer, in the most beneficial manner and at the lowest cost.

They are also prepared to take loans on the security of the rates for defraying the expenses of the execution of the works contracted for.

It will be at your option either to repay at once the cost of the requisite works by which the property will be benefited, or to repay it by annual instalments in 30 year, paying 5 per cent. interest on the principal sum expended, or on that part of it that may, from time to time, remain unpaid.

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

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

First Outlay per Tenement.	Annual Instalment for Repayment in 30 years.	Annual Interest, commuted at 5 per cent. on Outlay, charged as Rent on Tenant, and Annual Rent of Water.	Weekly Charge to the Tenant, or Increased Rent.
	£.	s.	d.	s.	d.	s.	d.	s.	d.
Water-closet Water-tank Drain	10	8	6	6	11	6	8	0	3
Main Sewer	5	12	0	3	9	3	6	0	1½
Water						5	0	0	1
Total	10	8	15	2	0	5½

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Claydon, Master of the Limehouse Workhouse, belonging to the Stepney Union.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. See the evidence on this subject taken before the Committee of the House of Commons, on the sewerage of the metropolis; see also the evidence of Mr. Oldfield, an extensive builder, post.

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

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

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

8. Treatise on Road Formation and Cleansing.

9. See in the Appendix the form of calculation.

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

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

12. A litre is one pint and a twentieth.

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

14. Vide extracts from the official report in the Appendix.

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

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

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

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

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

28.—Experience of Sickness in the Wynds of Edinburgh.

29.—Suggested Form of Notification to Owners or Occupiers for the distribution of the Expense of permanent Alterations, and the avoidance of Overcharges on persons enjoying only portions of the benefit.

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

Mr. Claydon, Master of the Limehouse Workhouse, belonging to the Stepney Union.