If the deaths in the metropolis during 1839 had been in the same proportion to the population as they were in Hereford, there would have been 8866 funerals less than there were during that year. If the proportion of births in the metropolis during that year had been the same as in Hereford, there would have been 16,053 births less than there were. Or to vary the illustration : If the deaths in Hereford had been in the same proportion as the deaths in the metropolis, the community in that county would during that year have had 977 funerals the more. If the births in Hereford had been in the same proportion as in the metropolis, there would during that year have been 540 births the more. If the deaths in the whole of England and Wales had been in the proportions attained in some districts, and attainable in all, namely, 1 to 50, there would during the year have been 31,866 funerals less, and more than ten times that amount of cases of sickness the less. If the proportion of births in the whole kingdom had been the same as those occurring in average healthy districts such as that of the town district of Hackney, for example, of 1 to 42-there would have been 139,958 births the less to make up for the excess of deaths. The importance of the subject will justify the reference to other examples. The Commissioners for taking the census of Ireland have bestowed considerable labour to effect various improvements, with a view to determine more accurately the actual condition and progress of the population. They have attempted, amongst other improvements, to ascertain not merely the total number of houses, but the number of each description of houses in each district. For the want of any system of mortuary or birth registry in Ireland their attempts to ascertain correctly the proportions of deaths and births to the population appear to have been to some degree frustrated; and the return of the average age of death must be received as an approximation, giving higher than the real chances of life in that country. From the inode which the Commissioners adopted, of collecting the ages of the living by taking the actual age of each individual with precautions, it appears probable that their returns on this head are more trustworthy than those obtained in England. The proportions of births to the population obtained by the Census Commissioners in Ireland are, I conceive, below the real amount; the proportions of deaths are confessedly so. The proportions of deaths and several other results may however serve for comparison between one province and another, and between one county and another. I have taken VOL. VII.-PART I. C Average age at death the following results from several of their tables, or have had them cal- 1. First Class houses........... 2. "Good farm-houses, or in towns 11 10 9 2 2 24 33 1 1 12 14 5 6 7 10 13 14 15 9 21 houses in a small street, having 21 21 56 60 21 21 37 39 13 13 14 49 8 8 30 33 16.8 17-248-646-6 from 5 to 9 rooms and windows" 3. "A better description of cottage,145 45 23 21 47 46 23 16 34 34 30 25 39 39 36 33 41.941-726-8 21.7 still built of mud, but varying 32 32 9 8 28 28 14 10 50 49 13 10 51 50 25 22 40 39.7 18.7 10-7 from 2 to 4 rooms and windows 4. "All mud cabins having only one room" } Houses. Houses. Families. Houses. Families. Houses. Families. Houses. Families. Houses. Families. Houses. Families. Houses. *$D[VIN 31-832 23-8 23 6 32. 31.5 25 25 4 28.2 27. 236 237 26 1 24-322- 22 4 29 6 28.9 24.1 24.3 The proportion of widowhood (which would generally be attended by its proportion of orphanage) to the short duration of life in the worst conditioned districts, is submitted as confirmatory of the principles expounded in the General Sanatory Report on the Condition of the Labouring Population in Great Britain, p. 188, et seq. Perfect conformity of the rate of increase of population with the ages of the living and the dying was not to be expected in the returns where the emigration from the different provinces is (probably) variable; but in the two provinces where the household condition appears to be the worst, and the proportion of mud cabins the greatest, there we find the mortality is the highest. Where the pressure of the causes of mortality is the greatest, where the average age of death is the lowest, and the duration of life is the shortest, there the increase of population is the greatest. The proportion of children is great, because life is short and the generation transient; the middle aged and the aged are swept away in large proportions; and marriages are disproportionately early. But, says Mr. Macculloch in an essay or note in his edition of the "Wealth of Nations," in support of Mr. Malthus's original view, "The effect of wars, plagues, and epidemic disorders, those terrible correctives, as they have been justly termed by Dr. Short, of the redundance of mankind on the principle of population, sets its operation in the most striking point of view. These scourges tend to place an old country in the situation of a colony. They lessen the number of inhabitants, without, in most cases, lessening the capital that is to feed and maintain them." What I apprehend the actual facts when examined place in a striking point of view, is the danger of adopting conclusions deeply affecting the interests of communities, on hypothetical reasonings, and without a careful investigation whether the facts sustain them. The facts themselves, when examined, show that (be it as it may with war) epidemic disorders do not lessen the number of inhabitants; and that they do in all cases that have been examined lessen the capital that is to feed and maintain them. They lessen the proportion of productive hands, and increase the proportion of the helpless and dependent hands. They place every community, new or old, in respect to its productive economy, in the position which the farmer will understand by the like effects of epidemics upon his cattle, when in order to raise one horse two colts must be reared, and the natural period of work of the one reared is, by disease and premature death, reduced by onethird or one-half. The exposition already given, vide General Report, p. 176, et seq., p. 200, of the dreadful misery and disease-sustaining fallacy which erects pestilence into a good, is further illustrated by the effects of the proportions of the dependent populations of Ireland. Thus, in England, the population above 15 and under 50 years of age in every ten thousand is 5025, and this five thousand have 3600 children below 15 years of age dependent upon them. In Ireland, the population above 15 years of age is 4900—in other words, there are 125 less of adults in every ten thousand; and this smaller proportion of living adults, with eight or ten years' span less of life or working ability, have 4050, or four hundred and fifty more children dependent upon them. In England there are 1365 persons in every ten thousand, or 13 per cent. above 50 years old to exercise the influence of their age and experience upon the community. In Ireland there are only 10 per cent., or 1050 in every ten thousand of the population above 50 years of age. It appears from a report which the Census Commissioners give on the sanatory condition of Dublin, that the mortality in the different localities of that city varies with their physical condition in the lower districts, and coincides with the description already cited in the general report, from the report of Dr. Speer, the physician to the Dublin Fever Hospital (vide General Sanatory Report, p. 96). The like consequences follow to the lower Irish population settled in the English towns with the like habits, which permit them to accumulate refuse round their dwellings, and live in an atmosphere compounded of the miasma of a pigsty and a privy, and the smoke of a chimney in a crowded room. Since these results have been published, I have received from Dr. James Willis, of Dublin, a benevolent physician, who has visited the dwellings of the lowest classes, and noted the ages of death in upwards of 12,000 cases, the valuable confirmation of the general conclusions above stated, derived from his extensive observations. He observes that "the census for Ireland gives a correct enumeration of the living, together with a very imperfect account of deaths, which is admitted to be very short of the actual number; yet are put forward to show cause why the deaths of Ireland should be, from the present condition of the country, independent of climate or other circumstances of that nature, less than those of England.' This is far from being correct; the very contrary is the fact. The mortality amongst our working classes is tremendous." He asks, "is it not horrible to contemplate an island producing as large a proportion of all animal life, as any on the face of the globe, having less of manhood and more of dependent infancy, tban anywhere to be found, even in the manufacturing and mining districts of Great Britain!" He gives the following Table of— The Proportionate Numbers of each Age in Ireland, compared with those in Leeds, Manchester, and Liverpool. IRELAND, 1841. Manchester, Leeds, and Ages. 5 and under Ulster. Leinster. Munster. Connaught. Total. Ages. 15.3090 14.3283 15.3826 16.1861 15.2464 6 to 10 13.4441 12.3361 13.0558 14.3064 13.2124 11 15 12.6154 11.3729 11.5807 12.2628 11.9511 16 20 11.4320 11.5496 11.6060 15 Under 5 13.4053 5 to 10 10.7092 10 15 10.0235 11.6448 11.9118 In Manchester and Leeds the proportion of children will be increased by immigration to supply the manufactures. In Liverpool, the increase of population has been 34 per cent.; the average age of the living is 25 years. In Manchester, the increase has been 25 per cent.; the average age of the living is 24 years. In Leeds, the increase has been 19 per cent.; the average age of the living was 24 years and 5 months. From inquiries made by Dr. Willis from cellar to garret, and from house to house in Dublin, he found the average age at death of the working classes was 18 years, decimal 65; which it will be seen is about the same age as that in one of the lowest districts in London, Bethnal Green; it being in the best districts in London about 30. The average age of death of those of the working classes in Dublin who had attained 21, was no more than 34 70; whilst even in Bethnal Green it is not less, apparently, than 46. Speaking of the deaths of children he states, "the deaths up to 5th year are rather under those of Manchester, Leeds, &c.; above 5 and up to 10, the mortality is very great, and more than in any of your manufacturing districts. I wish to avoid all theory, yet I cannot resist endeavouring to account for this excess of mortality at the ages 6 to 10. "The mothers with us have no employment, and, therefore, ever in their wretchedness they bring up a greater proportion of infants, say up to 5th or 6th years; from this to the 10th year very many of our poor children have not the same comforts as your factory children, and therefore furnish a larger proportion of deaths." The average number of children baptized to each marriage, is 570 ; average number now living to each marriage, 2.67. Of mothers who have had eight or more children, only 1 in 718 never lost a child; of mothers who have had six or more children, only 1 in 215 never lost a child!" The Census Commissioners of Ireland have endeavoured to obtain returns of the chief causes of the mortality; and it appears from the report upon them, that hitherto, notwithstanding all that has been said and written, that fever has returned nearly decennially in periods, irrespective of any general distress in that country, and has extended its ravages to classes who were exposed to the miasma, but who suffered no distress. "Cases of starvation," it is stated, "have been registered from returns at almost every age; 79 of them took place in the rural district, or 1 death in 11,539 of the general mortality of the open country, and minor towns and villages; 18 in the civic, or 1 in 13,009 of the deaths in towns of or above 2000 people; and 20 occurred in hospitals; the patients having been admitted when suffering from want of food, or in such a destitute condition as subsequently produced death from exhaustion. Including the deaths in hospitals with those in the civic districts, to which they properly belong, it appears that the deaths from want and destitution in the larger towns have been 1 in 7240 to the total mortality of these places. During the first 5-year period, these deaths were on an average but 6 per annum, and in the last 5-year period (that ending June, 1841), they had increased to the yearly average of 18.” The dependency of the duration of life upon the physical condition of the population, and the connection of several classes of moral and economical facts, with the proportionate mortality, may be further exemplified; taking the four counties in Ireland, in which the proportions of mud hovels are the greatest; and the four counties in which the proportions of such tenements are the least. Having obtained these proportions, I directed the other returns to be obtained in their order, and confidently anticipated the general results, following from the facts indicative of the physical conditton of the population. I now adduce these results, physical and moral, as additional proofs and exemplifications of the conclusions stated in pp. 128 and 129, and other parts of the Sanatory Report. The county of Dublin is left out as having a disproportionate amount of suburban population. |