20. It is the practice in Geneva for female servants to delay marriage until they have saved enough to furnish a house, &c. In illustration of this state of things it is stated that in 290 out of 956 marriages, the female was at the time of marriage older than the male. With further advances in prosperity, it is anticipated that age of marriage would again diminish.

21. “Out of 100 deaths in the 16th century, 25·92 were children in their first year; in the 17th century, 23·72; in the 18th century, 20·12; in 1801–13, they were 16·57; and in 1814–33, they were 13·85.” In Liverpool, the number of children which in the year 1840 died under one year of age was no less than 23 per cent., or what it was in Geneva in the 17th century. In the county of Wilts where the proportionate mortality is 1 in 58, the deaths of children in the first year were 16 per cent. Dr. Griffin, in a report on the sanitary condition of the population of Limerick, where the births appear to bear such proportions to the marriages as they appear to have borne in Geneva in the earliest periods, namely, of five children to a marriage, and more in the worst-conditioned districts, makes an important observation on the subject: “I find that as the poor nurse their own children, there is in general an interval of about two years between the birth of one child and that of the next; but if the child dies early on the breast, this interval will be much shorter; and if this occurs often, there will be a certain number born as it were for the purpose of dying; and these being soon replaced, the same number may still be preserved as if there had been few or no deaths, or only the ordinary number.” Of these 55 per cent. died.

22. The registries in England at present supply no means of distinguishing the migrant population who die in given places; and in each return a small proportion of deaths have been omitted where the station of the party has not been described; but taking as approximations the returns of the ages of all who die, no district examined appears to present so high a probability of life as at Geneva. The average age of all who died in the respective periods before stated appear, from the returns I have obtained, to be in the county of Rutland 39 years; in the Kendal union 36; in the county of Wilts 35 years; in Bath 31; in the Kensington union 30; in the Strand union 28; in the Whitechapel union 27; in Bethnal-green 21; in Leeds 21; in Manchester 20; in Bolton 19; in Liverpool 17. By the Northampton Tables the probability of life in infancy to all born was 25 years; in Carlisle it was 38.

23. Some constitutions are found which resist vaccine matter. Here and there constitutions appear which resist all the noxious influences by which they are surrounded, and attain extreme old age. Not unfrequently we find the existence of these solitary individuals referred to as proofs of the general salubrity of the very circumstances under which generations have fallen and been buried around them. It is a singular fact, as yet unexplained, that the greatest proportion of centenarians are of the labouring classes; and that instances of them have from time to time appeared amidst the crowded populations in some of the worst neighbourhoods in London, where the average duration of life is the lowest. It is remarked by Mr. Mallet, that in Geneva extreme old age has not participated in the prolongation of life which has taken place in the less advanced ages. In the periods of from 60 to 70 years of age the amelioration is inconsiderable; after 70 years there is no perceptible improvement; after 80 years the aged have indeed a little less probability of life at the present time than they had in the 16th century. Centenarians, who were not rare in the 16th and 17th centuries, now disappear; during the last 27 years Geneva has not produced a single one.

24. Bibliothèque Universelle, September, 1831.

In Alexandria, which is a seat of pestilence, where the Arab population leave the ordure before their doors (as we have seen large classes of the lower population do in this country), where the dog is the only scavenger of the animal refuse (as the pig is in many districts in our towns), where those who have died of plague remain unburied for days amidst the abodes of the living (as those who have died of fever often do in the poorest districts in this country),—there, under the more powerful action of a burning sun, disease and death are proportionately rife; and, as shown by some returns of death in 1841, out of a population of 60,000, the deaths were 7,017 (of which 1,165 only were from plague), or more than one-tenth of the population. It is known, however, that in the well-cleansed and best streets, inhabited by the European and fluctuating population, the proportion of mortality is not greater than amidst a similar population in the towns of Europe; but it is stated that the lower population, notwithstanding that it has been decimated by the annual mortality, has, within the last quarter of a century, more than doubled.

25. An English military officer, who has had much practice as an engineer, and who has done much to protect the health of the population of one of the South American towns, by drainage, whose opinion I took on the efficiency of measures for cleansing inferior districts, recently informed me that he should take advantage of a favourable change which had occurred in one of the recent revolutions, to return to South America, and try what he agreed was the most efficient course of proceeding, commencing with the middle classes, by inducing the new government to undertake works for bringing water into the houses of the inhabitants, and adopt the self-acting system of cleansing the poorest districts, and the use of the refuse for distant production, on the principles established in this Report.

The authorities in Hamburgh have applied to Mr. Lindley, the engineer, for a plan for the drainage of that town, and he has recommended for adoption the same principles, and the application of the refuse for agriculture, at a distance from the houses, instead of discharging it into the water which washes the town.

26. Dr. Bisset Hawkins, the medical Commissioner in the Factory Inquiry, stated in his Report, “I believe that most travellers are struck by the lowness of stature, the leanness and paleness which present themselves so commonly to the eye at Manchester, and above all, among the factory classes. I have never been in any town in Great Britain nor in Europe in which degeneracy of form and colour from the national standard has been so obvious.” P. 6. From a return obtained in 1836 and presented to the Manchester Statistical Society, of the cattle passing the toll-gates and the meat sold in the markets, it appeared that the consumption exclusively amongst this population could not be less than 105 lbs. each person annually, man, woman, and child, or 450 lbs. yearly per family of butchers’ meat alone, exclusively of bacon, pork, fish, and poultry. The wretched personal appearance of this population was only equalled by that of the Irish population of St. Giles, where the man earned from 14s. or 16s. to 1l. per week, (the wife and child earning something in addition,) but where it is their habit to live chiefly on potatoes and use little meat. The effect of a pure atmosphere, independently of diet, is shown in this population when they go into the country during harvest time. After a fortnight or three weeks’ absence, in which they will have had little change of living, except, perhaps, taking less spirits, the whole family return with the hue of health.

27. I have referred to the experience since the year 1801 in France, where the registration of births amongst the migratory population of the crowded districts, where the greatest mortality prevails, is likely to have been as imperfect as in England, but that experience is, on the whole, confirmatory, and proves that in the worst districts the births still exceed the mortality.

28. In recruiting for the French army, the standard is now fixed at 1·566 metres of height, which is about 5 feet 1½ inches English.

Fifty years ago, however, the standard height was 5 feet 4 inches English.

The English standard is for the Foot Guards 5 feet 6 inches.

(M. Quetelet and M. Villermé, on the authority of M. Tenon, Annuaire de l’Obs. de Bruxelles, 1836.)

29. The diseases included under “Other Diseases,” include the deaths registered from a number of miscellaneous causes too numerous to be specified in the table.

30. Where so much independent provision is made, as by clubs, only a part of the consequences of premature deaths appear on the poor’s roll. The population of Camborne is less exclusively mining than is Gwennap; but the records of pauperism in the office afford marks of a general difference in the condition of the population of the two parishes.

31. I am informed that regulations on the principle of those we recommended, under the Factory Commission for the Protection of Adult Workmen from the consequences of Accidents, are now adopted in the Prussian code, and practically enforced.

32. An Act made in Ireland the 3rd year of his present Majesty “for better preventing the severities, &c., has the following clause:—“Whereas many infectious disorders are daily produced by the confinement of numbers in close prisons, whereunto there is no back-yard adjoining, and the lives of his majesty’s subjects are endangered by the bringing of prisoners into public streets for air; be it enacted—That every grand jury at the assizes or quarter sessions may be enabled, and they are hereby required and directed to contract either by lease, or to purchase a piece of ground next adjoining the gaol, or as near as conveniently can be had thereto, and cause to be erected necessary houses, and a wall sufficient for the security of the said prisoners.””

33. Thirty-three males who were imprisoned for six months gained 37 lbs. total weight; five females gained 19 lbs.; twenty-two males, confined during twelve months, gained 3 lbs.; eight females, during the same period, gained 5 lbs.; seven males in eighteen months gained 24 lbs.; and two females 10 lbs. At Edinburgh also they were weighed, and, on the whole, they gained. See Appendix, statement of the periods of confinement and weight of prisoners at the commencement and termination of their imprisonment.

34. It is observed by Dr. Wilson, in reference to the mortality in the navy, that “the mortality from wounds is inconsiderable compared with that occasioned by disease. Much misconception has prevailed on this subject in the public mind. Deaths in action, by the general excitement attending them, from being published in official despatches and perpetuated in gazettes, make more than a due impression; for it is found, when accurately reckoned, that they are few in comparison with those resulting from ordinary diseases. Sir G. Blane, when writing under the common impression, and without the corrections of figures, alleges that half the mortality in war periods is attributable to wounds received in battle and other external causes; but he gives a very different account when he dismisses unauthenticated notions to deal with numerical facts. He then states, that from 1780 till 1783, though in that period, besides single actions, engagements with forts, &c., the great battle of the 12th of April was fought, the mortality from disease, compared with that from external causes, was as 3 to 1; in 1779, according to his statement, the former was to the latter as 8 to 1.” During the last 41 months of the peninsular war, whilst 24,930 privates died of disease, only 8899 died of wounds, or were killed in battle. The deaths during the campaign were,—of the privates in battle, 4·2 per cent.; of disease, 11·9 per cent.: of officers, in battle, 6·6 per cent.; of disease, 3·7 per cent. per annum. The average deaths in four battles, Talavera, Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo, were 3·9 per cent. of officers, 2·11 of privates. In the peninsular war there were generally 22½ per cent. of men absent on account of sickness; and a reduction of the proportions of sick to 6 per cent. would have set free 10,000 men from the hospitals to be added to the effective force of the army.—Official Returns. The highest increased charge for insurance of military men during the peninsular campaign was 10 guineas per cent. The extra premiums taken on the insurance of military lives on service in India and China are from 3 to 5 guineas per cent., governed, however, by the unfavourable chances of the climate to which the campaign leads, as well as by the increased risks from battle. The extra premiums on naval officers in hostile service is usually from 3 to 5 guineas per cent., governed by the consideration of the climate.

35. Vide Appendix for estimate and detailed specification. From some recent experiments made with the egg-shaped sewers or main drains, it appears that drains of sufficient size might be made at one-third less than the price for sewers in the annexed estimate. In many instances, main drains costing one-half the sum would suffice.

36. As an instance of the little account the manufacturing workpeople have made of such charges, it is mentioned by Sir Charles Shaw that, on the introduction of the new police force into Manchester, he found the workpeople in the habit of paying 6d. per week each to the old watch for calling them up. He put a stop to the practice, as being one which interfered with the regular duties of the police, and as being founded on a habit which might be corrected. The employers, however, complained of the interruption of the practice, and requested that it might be renewed. Sir Charles, considering that 6d. was too high a charge, offered to allow the police to call up the workpeople at 2d. per week each, provided the masters, to save the trouble of the weekly collection, deducted the amount from the weekly wages, and paid it over to the police fund. The answer to the proposal was, that the workpeople would sooner pay 6d. of their own accord than have 1d. deducted from their wages by their masters.

37. The experience of France is precisely similar. In a work of great authority on the lower classes of that country, it is stated that the secret of the existence of so many filthy, infected, and miserable habitations, is simply that the persons who pay two sous for their lodging at night spend ten sous on brandy by day.

38. A butter merchant informed me that the value of the Irish butter was deteriorated to a greater extent than they were aware of, from its being frequently made in close smoky hovels instead of in clean and well-ventilated dairies, as in England.

39. In an inquiry, from house to house, into the condition of the labouring population in the parishes of St. Margaret and St. John Westminster, it was found that, out of a total of 5366 houses, 2352 were occupied for terms under one year, and that no less than 1834 had been occupied during periods from one to six months only.

40. It appears that the mortality for five years, ending 1839, was in Catrine 1 to 54.20, whilst in Glasgow for the same period it was 1 to 31.

41. Mohl. Polizei-Wissenschaft, vol. i. page 135, Note.

42. “Or shall on the said bridge, or in any street or place within the distance aforesaid (all the legislation was restricted to “fifty yards”) from either end thereof, hoop, fire, cleanse, wash, or scald any cask or tub; or hew, saw, or cut any stone, wood or timber; or bore any timber; or make or repair, or wash or clean any coach, chaise, waggon, sledge or other carriage, or the wheel, body, springs, or other part of any coach, chaise, waggon, sledge, or other carriage (except such as may want immediate repair from any sudden accident on the spot, and which cannot be conveniently removed for that purpose); or wet, slack, or mix any lime; or wet, mix or make any mortar; or shoe, bleed, or farry any horse or other beast, unless in case of sudden accident; or clean, dress, drive, or turn loose any horse, or other beast, or cattle; or show or expose any stallion or stonehorse; or show or expose, or exercise or expose to sale any horse or other beast; or kill or slaughter, or scald, singe, dress or cut up any animal, either wholly or in part; or cause or permit any blood to run from any slaughter-house, butcher’s-shop or shamble into any of the streets or places within the distance aforesaid from the said bridge; or shall sell or assist in selling by auction or public sale, any cattle, goods, wares, merchandize, or thing or things whatsoever; or hang up or expose to sale, or cause or permit to be hanged up, placed or exposed to sale, any goods, wares, or merchandize whatever, or any fruit, vegetables, or garden-stuff, butchers’ meat, or other matter or thing upon the said bridge; or in, or upon, or so as to project over or upon the footway or carriage-way of the said streets or places within the distance aforesaid, or beyond the line, or on the outside of the window or windows of the house, shop, or place at which the same shall be so hanged up, placed, or exposed to sale, or so as to obstruct or incommode the passage of any person or carriage: or leave open after sunset the door or window of any cellar, or other underground room or apartment, without having placed or left a sufficient light therein to warn and prevent persons passing in the streets and public places within the distance aforesaid from the said bridge, from falling into such cellars or other underground rooms or apartments; or bait, or cause to be baited any bull or other animal; or throw at any cock or fowl in the manner called cock-throwing, or set up any fowl to be thrown at in such manner; or play at foot-ball, or at any other game on the said bridge, or within such distance as aforesaid, to the annoyance of any inhabitant or inhabitants, or passenger or passengers,” * * * * “or wilfully permit or suffer any horse, or other beast or cattle which such person may be riding or driving, or leading, to go thereon; or shall tie or fasten any horse or other cattle to any house, wall, fence, post, tree, or other thing whatsoever, across any of the highways, footways, or foot-pavements of the said bridge, or within the distance aforesaid.”

43. Pay of the corps of Royal Engineers for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, consisting of 241 officers, viz.—5 colonels-commandant, at 2l. 14s. 9½d. per diem each; 10 colonels, at 1l. 6s. 3d. ditto; 20 lieutenant-colonels, at 18s. 1d. ditto; 5 lieutenant-colonels, at 16s. 1d. ditto; 40 captains, at 11s. 1d. ditto; 40 second captains, at 11s. 1d. ditto; 80 first lieutenants, at 6s. 10d. ditto; 40 second lieutenants, at 5s. 1d. ditto;—total, 48,093l.

Pay of the corps of Royal Sappers and Miners for general service, consisting of 961 men, officers included; viz.—Staff: 1 brigade-major, at 10s. per diem; 1 adjutant, at 10s. ditto; 1 quarter-master, at 8s. ditto; 2 serjeant-majors, at 4s. 6½d. ditto each; 3 quarter-master serjeants, at 4s. 0½d. ditto; 1 bugle-major, at 4s. 0½d. ditto;—total 972l. One company consisting of—1 colour serjeant. at 3s. 0½d. per diem; 3 serjeants, at 2s. 6½d. ditto each; 4 corporals, at 2s. 2½d. ditto; 4 second corporal, at 1s. 10¾d. ditto; 75 carpenters, masons, bricklayers, smiths, wheelers, coopers, collar-makers, painters, tailors, miners, and 2 buglers, at 1s. 2½d. per diem each;—total 3,465l.—Ordnance Estimates for 1841.

44. It may be of interest to observe that as the whole population grows in age, the annual increase in numbers may be deemed to be equivalent to an annual increase of numbers of the average ages of the community. If they were maintained on the existing average of territory to the population in England, the additional numbers would require an annual extension of one fifty-seventh of the present territory of Great Britain, possessing the average extent of roads, commons, hills, and unproductive land. The extent of new territory required annually would form a county larger than Surrey, or Leicester, or Nottingham, or Hereford, or Cambridge, and nearly as large as Warwick. To feed the annually increased population, supposing it to consume the same proportions of meat that is consumed by the population of Manchester and its vicinity, (a consumption which appears to me to be below the average of the consumption in the metropolis,) the influx of 230,000 of new population will require for their consumption an annual increase of 27,327 head of cattle, 70,319 sheep, 64,715 lambs, and 7894 calves, to raise which an annual increase of upwards of 81,000 acres of good pasture land would be required. Taking the consumption of wheat or bread to be on the scale of a common dietary, i. e., 56 oz. daily for a family of a man, woman, and three children, then the annual addition of supply of wheat required will be about 105,000 quarters, requiring 28,058 acres of land, yielding 30 bushels of wheat to an acre; the total amount of good land requisite for raising the chief articles of food will therefore be in all about 109,000 acres of good pasture land annually. If the increase of production obtained by the use of the refuse of Edinburgh (that is, of 3900 oxen from one quarter of the refuse of Edinburgh) be taken as the scale of production obtainable by appropriate measures, the refuse of the metropolis alone that is now thrown away would serve to feed no less than 218,288 oxen annually, which would be equivalent to the produce of double that number of acres of good pasture land.

45. Vide Report.

46. By the statute of 1 and 2 Wm. IV. c. 57, power was given to undertakers to contract for the improvement of land in Ireland, on condition that they should receive a profit which was in no case to exceed 15l. per cent. on the outlay. The undertakers, on the consent of two-thirds of the proprietors or of the lessees, were to apply to the Lord-lieutenant for a commission. Individual proprietors or lessees, not exceeding six in number, upon receiving the assent of two-thirds of the proprietors or lessees, might also apply for a commission. To the reason above assigned for the failure, these must be added—that the machinery of the Act is considered complicated; that it nevertheless contained no provisions for ascertaining boundaries, without which in Ireland it would be unsafe to raise any annuity upon the lands; that the mode of repayment, i. e., that if the landlords did not within a certain time pay the gross sum assessed, the undertakers were entitled to a redeemable annuity upon the lands drained; but there was no provision to compel the landowners to pay the gross sum, and the annuities might be small and numerous.

47. Except in endeavouring to give more emphatic recommendations as to the importance of making all the paid officers really responsible, I should not vary the representation I had then the honour to make in respect to the means of giving efficiency to local administration. “With respect to the allusion of Mr. Earle, as to the cry of centralization, I conceive that it is a cry to which the few who use it can attach no definite ideas, and it has certainly had little influence except with the most ignorant. The phrase has been used abroad against the destruction of the authority of local administrative bodies, and the substitution of an inefficient and irresponsible agency by the general government. But even abroad, all those who call themselves the friends of popular liberty do not declaim against centralization, but against irresponsibility. Here the phrase is used against a measure by which strong local administrative bodies of representatives have been created over the greater part of the country, where nothing deserving the name of systematised local administration has heretofore existed. The central board may be described as an agency necessary for consolidating and preserving the local administration, by communicating to each board the principles deducible from the experience of the whole; and, in cases such as those in which its intervention is now actually sought, acting so as to protect the administration being torn by disputes between members of the same local board; between a part or a minority of the inhabitants and the board, and between one local board and another, and in numerous other cases affording an appeal to a distant and locally disinterested, yet highly responsible authority, which may interpose to prevent the local administrative functions being torn or injured by local dissentions. I feel confident that the more the subject is examined, the more clearly it will be perceived that the great security for the purity and improvement of local administration must depend on a central agency.”

48. The parish doctors in England were often paid only 20l. per annum for attendance in parishes of considerable extent. The payments to medical officers who have their private practice are generally quadrupled, as compared with the parish doctors. The medical arrangements in Glasgow will illustrate the frequent state of the existing arrangements in Scotland. The burgh of Glasgow, exclusive of the suburbs, is divided into 12 districts, to each of which a medical practitioner is appointed, who is paid for his services out of the poor’s rates. Dr. Cowan stated of them in his report,—“The duties of the district surgeons are laborious and dangerous. Nearly all of them take fever, which involves a heavy pecuniary loss. Their salary is less than 21l. per annum, being less than 1s. for the treatment of each case.” For an equivalent district in population under the New Poor Law in England, namely, in Lambeth, there are four out-door medical officers, at salaries of 107l. each, and two in-door medical officers, at salaries of 128l. each. They have in addition their private practice and fees for vaccination, and special cases. The usual rate of medical allowance to the resident medical officers of dispensaries, who are excluded from private practice, has been from 60l. to 70l. per annum.

49. After the great fire of London, had the plan of Sir Christopher Wren been adopted for the reconstruction of the City, that circumstance would have saved the great expenses which have lately been incurred in rendering the communications commodious; but no price could now achieve the conveniences and facilities which his plan would have conferred on the inhabitants during the long interval.

50. The Nungate is situated along the edge of the mill-pool.

51. In dry weather the abrasion of the stones is much less.

52. Scotland Yard, Finsbury Circus, and the north side of St. Paul’s Churchyard afford partial illustrations of this arrangement.

53. General Average.

54. Mr. Terry, who is a very extensive farmer in Cookham, and was present during this inquiry, explained this, and, in corroboration of Mr. Whateley’s evidence on this point, stated that he, as a farmer, could not make any profit by growing pigs beyond a certain size. The only advantage which he had from keeping them was in using them to collect the refuse corn, which would otherwise be trodden under foot at the barn-door and rendered unmarketable; the office of the pig was to gather up this refuse, and convert it into a marketable commodity, pork. To fat the pigs beyond a certain size required more than the refuse of the farm-yard; and, therefore, would not pay the farmer. It was therefore, the practice of the farmers to sell the pigs to the millers, who were enabled to fat them on another description of refuse. Now if the labouring man kept a pig, as he had no farm-yard, and no refuse to feed it with, he must either buy the food or steal it. If he were honest and bought the food, his pork would, as Mr. Whateley has stated, cost much more than he could buy it for. A pig could only be kept on the produce of such a piece of land as a labourer could not well cultivate whilst he attended to his other duties. In this state of things, the temptation to pilfer for the support of the pig was considerable. Other witnesses incidentally corroborated this statement, and I found that with many farmers the circumstance of a labouring man having a pig was an objection to giving him employment. The Rev. Mr. Faithful, of Hatfield, Herts, stated, as the result of his observation, that the keeping of pigs was decidedly not profitable to cottagers; and such was the temptation to steal which their possession of pigs created, that he had known a labourer, who had a pig given to him, to steal from the donor the wood to make its sty, the straw to litter it, and the food to feed it. The farmers ridiculed the prevalent statements as to the small cost at which pigs could be kept,—statements commonly made to the gentry by roguish rustics, who profited by these delusions; a pig was not accommodating enough to fatten on less for the cottager than for the farmer.

A friend, who writes from Wiltshire, observes,—“I cannot make out who it is that does fatten pigs to a profit. I asked a brewer the other day if, with his grains, he did not make it answer; and he told me that, on the contrary, he was always out of pocket, and only kept a pig for the pleasure of eating his own pork. ‘Private individuals,’ he added, ‘feed their pigs with what should rather be called spoilt malt than grains. I cannot afford to do that; I must get out all the goodness for my beer, and then there is not sufficient nutriment left to fatten without the addition of things which I must purchase.’ It is not unlikely that many persons, who fancied they kept pigs to a profit, have fed them on this ‘spoilt malt,’ in ignorance that they were, in fact, giving their swine valuable beer instead of refuse grains.”

A gentleman, speaking of such appendages to labourers’ tenements in a manufacturing district, states,—“Formerly most of our houses had them, but they are terrible things for getting out of repair, and we are pulling them down a good deal, and clearing the ground; for I know, from intelligent, clear-headed workmen, that the manufacturing families cannot grow their pork nearly so cheap as they can buy it. The trade in bacon is quite different to what it was 20 or 30 years ago. Now it is a great business, and the quantity of the improved Irish pigs brought even into smallish cottages is very large. In such villages where yard-room is not very large, swill and manure make a terrible stink. Only such of our people keep pigs as have a fondness for it, and as a sort of hobby, but believing that it does not pay.”

55. The plan of Gourlier was simply to divide the receptacle into two parts, an upper compartment and a lower. The contents of the water-closet were discharged into the upper portion, and the water drained into the lower, through holes pierced in the partition. In the barrack plan there was no division in the receptacle, but, instead, a leaden pipe pierced with holes was carried perpendicularly through the midst of it, into which the water filtered from the receptacle, and was conducted anywhere at pleasure. Neither of these systems obviated two principal evils—the necessity to empty the receptacles, and the stagnation of the water, from the night-soil, round the foundations of the houses, from whence it worked its way up into the walls. The annoyance always felt from the removal of night-soil in Paris, and the ineffectual efforts of scientific men, for a long course of years, to discover a remedy, is a sufficient proof of the imperfection of all other methods except sewers. There has never indeed been a question that this last system was incomparably the best. But it has not occurred to men of science at Paris, that there could be any other outlet for the sewers besides the Seine, and the popular apprehension that the water would by this means be polluted, combined with the unwillingness to sacrifice the manure, have been always viewed as fatal objections.—Translator.

56. The disinfection is produced by mixing the night-soil with calcined mud, or burned turf, or saw-dust, or refuse tan, and various other substances. A commission of the Conseil de Salubrité found that a large barrel of fecal matter was deprived of all smell in five minutes by this process; and even putrefied entrails, the severest test by which it could be tried, yielded equally to its influence. The commission, however, doubted the success of the application where the water was in large proportions.—Translator.

57. Classes Dangereuses, tom. ii., p. 126.

58. Parent Duchâtelet, de la Prostitution, tom. i. p. 504.

59. Classes Dangereuses, tom. i., p. 135.

60. Even in case of the existence of water companies for the supply of towns, there should still be public springs or wells, which would furnish at least the absolutely necessary quantity of water, free of all expense. In this case, any one who wished to have greater abundance, or wished the water to be introduced into his house, might have it by paying for it.

61. The instances of towns having gained very essentially by drainage are Stuttgard, which has, in consequence, entirely lost a peculiar endemic fever; and Pavia which, by the filling up of the city ditches, has had its average duration of life much raised.

62. Supposing the number to be 1½ daily out of 170, that would give little more than half a week’s sickness yearly to each individual employed. This is a very low average. The sickness found to prevail in ordinary times amongst the labouring population of two parishes in Westminster was at the rate of between 5 and 6 days to each individual. The sickness of the Metropolitan Police is 10½ per annum to each individual. The proportionate mortality of 13 annually out of 550 is 1 to 42, which it will also be perceived, on reference to the standards previously given, is a low proportion of mortality for a manufacturing population.

63. Dr. Currie’s Medical Reports, chap. xxii. Liverpool, 1797.

64. Formerly the mortality on board convict ships amounted to 50 and even 60 per cent. during the voyage; under the more recent arrangements they have amounted only to about 1½ per cent.—E. C.

65. Ten has been the average deaths, taking the last three years.

66. I am of opinion that this Table does not afford sufficient data to warrant general conclusions being deduced from it after the age of 36, as the number of prisoners above that age is too small. In proof of this it may be stated that one person experienced 18 days’ sickness out of the 30 days in the class from 41 to 46, and that another had 18 days’ sickness out of the 36 in the class from 56 to 61, while in the class 76 to 81, one person experienced 3 days, being the whole sickness. J. Smith.