system, tending to incite to the habitual use of ardent spirits; both tending to precipitate this population into disease and misery." In lamenting over the picture, but too clearly delineated, of the demoralization and disorganization of our labouring classes, caused by the removal of those architectural barriers by which nature, even among savages, protects modesty and encourages decency, Mr. Chadwick maintains that no education as yet commonly given appears to have availed against such corrupting circumstances: dwelling, per contrà, on numerous instances of the moral improvement of a population apparently resulting from street-cleansing, land-draining, and improvements of the external and internal condition of their dwellings. We think it clear enough that it is mere mockery to talk of elevating by education classes whom we allow to be perpetually acted upon by physical circumstances of the deeply degrading tendency now sufficiently exposed. How striking are these words of Mr. Walker, the magistrate of the Thames Police Office! After deprecating the practice of building for the poor miserable hovels, instead of more comfortable and respectable, well-drained dwellings, he says,— From what I have observed, I am fully convinced that if shambles were built on any spot, and all who choose were allowed to occupy them, they would soon be occupied by a race lower than any yet known. I have often said, that if empty casks were placed along the streets of Whitechapel, in a few days each of them would have a tenant, and these tenants would keep up their kind, and prey upon the rest of the community. I am sure that, if such facilities were offered, there is no conceivable degradation to which portions of the species might not be reduced. Wherever there are empty houses which are not secured, they are soon tenanted by wretched objects, and these tenants continue so long as there is a harbour for them. Parish-officers and others come to me to aid them in clearing such places. I tell the police and the parish that there is no use in their watching these places; that they must board them up, if they would get rid of the occupants. If they will give the accommodation, they will get the occupants. If you will have marshes and stagnant waters, you will there have suitable animals; and the only way of getting rid of them is by draining the marshes.' Mr. Chadwick dwells on domestic mismanagement generally, as one great predisposing cause of disease. There is no doubt that the poor are in the habit of buying their tea, coffee, sugar, butter, cheese, bacon, and other articles, in small quantities from the hucksters, who, to cover bad debts, charge exorbitant prices. Destitution is often therefore caused by the wasteful misapplication of wages which, with habits of frugality, would prove to be sufficient; but the grand evil is, that every species of mismanagement promotes or ends in the gin and whiskey. Every day' intemperance' is talked of and preached against as the cause cause of fever, and of the prevalent mortality. We neglect, however, to reflect that it is the discomfort of the poor that drives them to drink. Rival pleasures might be encouraged, which would keep them sober; but, alas, whiskey is declared to be good for damp and rheumatism, when drainage and a clean residence are really the physical remedies that should be prescribed. IV. Comparative chance of life in different classes of the com munity. There is no proverb more generally admitted than that Death is no respecter of persons.' Mr. Chadwick, however, has drawn from the mortuary registers a series of tabular returns, of which the following is a single specimen :— 137 Gentry and professional persons, &c. Again, it is an appalling fact, that, among the labouring classes in Manchester, more than fifty-seven out of every hundred die before they attain five years of age!-More than one-half of their progeny die within the fifth year of their birth; while one-fifth only of the children of the gentry die within the same period. In explanation of such a difference, Mr. Chadwick has annexed to his report plans of different towns, showing, by different tints, that the localities of the epidemic diseases which raged there are identical with the uncleansed and close streets and wards occupied by the poor. Instead of actively searching for the causes which have been so fatally shortening as well as embittering the existence of our labouring classes, it has of late years been much the fashion among political economists-who clearly enough saw that this mortality, from whatever cause it was proceeding, did not affect them to adopt the convenient theory that wars, plagues, pestilence, epidemic disorders, and accidents of every description, which cause premature deaths among the poor, are, if it could only be satisfactorily explained to them, a terrible corrective,' kindly ordained by Nature, in order to prevent population exceeding the means of subsistence. But Mr. Chadwick, standing forward as the advocate of Nature and of the poor, denies the Malthusian doctrine altogether, and produces tabular ac counts taken from the bills of mortality of every county in. England, which certainly appear to prove that the proportion of births to the population is greatest where there is the greatest mortality-and consequently that pestilence or excessive mortality. does not diminish the sum total of population! Our mismanage ment ment produces disease, and that makes the gap which Nature immediately labours to fill up. Let us allow as largely as we choose for inconsiderate and reckless conduct in individualsstill, inasmuch as two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time, the young in almost every trade and profession of life must unavoidably defer marriage until their seniors vacate by death the places of trust and confidence which they have gradually attained. So long, therefore, as these places linger in the possession of the old, the increase of population is proportionably subdued; whereas, on the other hand, if, from avoidable or unavoidable disease, the duration of life be so shortened that those loca tenentes, who neither increase nor multiply, shall be either partly or wholly replaced by those of an age to do both, it evidently follows that this description of mortality must produce more births than deaths. In fact, even the returns of the deaths, marriages, and births among the white population on the west coast of Africa demonstrate that, though the mortality there has been as frightful as we have described it, the births have exceeded it largely :-for instance, in the different districts of this pestilential abode the number of deaths (nine-tenths of which were of persons under forty years of age) amounted in 1839 to 241, while in the same year the number of baptisms was 464, and the number of marriages 542; indeed it seems natural that young people should become reckless of consequences, and regardless of the future, in a climate which, by the ravages it is daily creating, appears always to be relentlessly exclaiming to them, To-morrow die ! V. Pecuniary burdens created by the neglect of sanitary measures. To whatever extent,' says Mr. Chadwick, the probable duration of the life of the working man is diminished by noxious agencies, I repeat a truism in stating that to the same extent 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." It appears that the number of widows chargeable to the poorrates in the year ending Lady-day, 1840, was 43,000, and that the total number of orphan children to whom relief was given was 112,000. Of these it is estimated that 27,000 cases of premature widowhood, and more than 100,000 of orphanage, might be traced to removable causes. Take one pleasing example of a cause removed : 'In one mine,' says Dr. Barham, the Dolcoath mine, in the parish of Camborne, in Cornwall, great attention is paid to obviate agencies injurious to the miners. Care is there taken in respect to ventilation in the mines, and the men are healthier than in most other mines; there are more old miners. Care is taken, for the prevention of aceidents. 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, they issue from their underground labour into a warm room, where well-dried clothes are ready for them; warm water, and even baths are supplied from the steam-furnace; and 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. 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 1500/.' It appears to be the governing principle of Mr. Chadwick's report to demonstrate to the public that the welfare of the labouring poor is identical with that of all other classes—that whatever afflicts the former, sympathetically affects the latter and consequently that whenever the poor are brought to an untimely grave by causes which are removable, the community in some way or other is sure to suffer retributive punishment for the neglect. For example-in corroboration of the evidence already adduced, he gives tabular returns, showing the difference in the proportions of ages between a depressed and unhealthy, and a comparatively vigorous population: by which it appears that, while in a hundred men of the former, there would not be two men beyond 60 years of age, not eight above 50, and not a fourth above 40-in the other population there would be fourteen beyond 60, twenty-seven beyond 50, or a clear majority of mature age. Now mark one consequence : 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 is apt to strike those who have seen assemblages of the working population in districts more favourably situated. In the course of some inquiries under the Constabulary Force Commission, reference was made to the meetings held by torchlight in the neighbourhood of Manchester. It was reported that the bulk consisted of mere boys, and that there were scarcely any men of mature age amongst them. Those of 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 above the influence of the anarchical fallacies which appeared to sway those wild and dangerous assemblages. The inquiry which arose upon such statements was how it happened that the men of mature 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 fellowworkmen? 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 must 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, 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. 66 In the metropolis the experience is similar. The mobs against which the police have to guard come from the most depressed districts; and the constant report of the superintendents is, that scarcely any old men are to be seen amongst them. In general they appear to consist of persons between 16 and 25 years of age. The mobs from such districts as Bethnal Green are proportionately conspicuous for a deficiency of bodily strength, without, however, being from that cause proportionately the less dangerously mischievous. I was informed by peace-officers that the great havoc at Bristol was committed by mere boys.' Since the publication of the Report alarming riots have occurred in the manufacturing districts; and our readers will observe, from the following authentic details, which we have taken some trouble to obtain, how singularly Mr. Chadwick's statement has just been corroborated. Ages of the Prisoners for Trial at the Special Commission in Cheshire, Lancashire, and Staffordshire, October, 1842: |