Yet how much remains to be done is shown by the fact that in Paris, with a drier and more salubrious climate, the mortality is still greater than in London; and that the advantages of which M. Villermé justly speaks so highly, are distributed with extreme inequality, is apparent from his tables, which show that in one district the mortality has diminished to 1 in 52; whilst in another it remains as great as 1 in 26 annually. So we have seen that in London it ranges from 1 in 28 to 1 in 57; and it will be seen that in the township of Manchester, a population of nearly 80,000, one twenty-eighth are swept away annually, whilst, in a favoured suburban district, no more than one sixty-third part die.
I have been favoured by M. Ducpetiaux, the Inspector-general of prisons in Belgium, with the copy of a report on an inquiry similar to the present, into the condition of the labouring population in Brussels. I have submitted an extract from it in the Appendix, descriptive of the general condition in which their residences were found. When the proportion which the well-conditioned houses of that city bear to the great mass is considered, it will not excite surprise to those who have traversed the poorer districts to find that the average mortality amongst the whole population was, in the year 1840, 1 in 24. In 1829, it appears to have been 1 in 21.
In illustration of the moral and social effects to be anticipated from measures for the removal of the causes of pestilence amongst the labouring classes, and for the increase of their duration of life, concurrently with an increase of the population, I refer to the effects experienced in Geneva from the like improvements effected during the lapse of centuries. That city is, so far as I am aware, the only one in Europe in which there is an early and complete set of registers of marriages, births, and deaths. These registries were established in the year 1549, and are viewed as pre-appointed evidences to civil rights, and are kept with great care. This registration includes the name of the disease which has caused the death, entered by a district physician who is charged by the State with the inspection of every person who dies within his district. A second table is made up from certificates setting forth the nature of the disease, with a specification of the symptoms, and observations required to be made by the private physician who may have had the care of the deceased. These registries have been the subject of frequent careful examinations. It appears from them that the progress of the population intra muros of that city has been as follows:—
| In the Year | Inhabitants. | Proportionate rate of Increase as compared with 1589. |
|---|---|---|
| 1589 | 13,000 | 100 |
| 1693 | 16,111 | 124, or 24 per cent. |
| 1698 | 16,934 | 130, or 30 per cent. |
| 1711 | 18,500 | 142, or 42 per cent. |
| 1721 | 20,781 | 160, or 60 per cent. |
| 1755 | 21,816 | 168, or 68 per cent. |
| 1781 | 24,810 | 191, or 91 per cent. |
| 1785 | 25,500 | 196, or 96 per cent. |
| 1789 | 26,140 | 201, or 101 per cent. |
| 1805 | 22,300 | 171, or 71 per cent. |
| 1812 | 24,158 | 186, or 86 per cent. |
| 1822 | 24,886 | 191, or 91 per cent. |
| 1828 | 26,121 | 201, or 101 per cent. |
| 1834 | 27,177 | 209, or 109 per cent. |
It is proved in a report by M. Edward Mallet, one of the most able that have been made from these registries, that this increase of the population has been followed by an increase in the probable duration of life in that city:—
| Years. | Months. | Days. | Proportionate rate of Increase as compared with the end of 16th Century. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Towards the end of the 16th century the probabilities of life were, to every individual born ... | 8 | 7 | 26 | 100 |
| In the 17th century | 13 | 3 | 16 | 153, or 53 per cent. |
| 1701–1750 | 27 | 9 | 13 | 321, or 221 per cent. |
| 1751–1800 | 31 | 3 | 5 | 361, or 261 per cent. |
| 1801–1813 | 40 | 8 | 0 | 470, or 370 per cent. |
| 1814–1833 | 45 | 0 | 29 | 521, or 421 per cent. |
The progression of the population and the increased duration of life had been attended by a progression in happiness: as prosperity advanced marriages became fewer and later;[[20]] the proportion of births were reduced, but greater numbers of the infants born were preserved;[[21]] and the proportion of the population in manhood became greater. In the early and barbarous periods, the excessive mortality was accompanied by a prodigious fecundity. In the ten last years of the 17th century, a marriage still produced five children and more; the probable duration of life attained was not 20 years, and Geneva had scarcely 17,000 inhabitants. Towards the end of the 18th century there was scarcely three children to a marriage, and the probabilities of life exceeded 32 years. At the present time a marriage only produces 2¾ children; the probability of life is 45[[22]] years, and Geneva, which exceeds 27,000 in population, has arrived at a high degree of civilization and of “prospérité matérielle.” In 1836 the population appeared to have attained its summit; the births barely replaced the deaths.
M. Mallet observes, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish the different causes, and the different degrees of intensity of each of the causes that have tended to produce this result. It is, however, attributed generally to the advance in the condition of all classes; to the medical science of the public health being better understood and applied; to larger and better and cleaner dwellings; more abundant and healthy food; the cessation of the great epidemics which, from time to time, decimated the population; the precautions taken against famine; and better regulated public and private life. As an instance of the effects of regimen in the preservation of life, he mentions that, in an establishment for the care of female orphans taken from the poorest classes, out of 86 reared in 24 years, one only had died These orphans were taken from the poor. The average mortality on the whole population would have been six times as great.[[23]]
An impression of an undefined optimism is frequently entertained by persons who are aware of the wretched condition of a large portion of the labouring population; and this impression is more frequently entertained than expressed, as the ground of inaction for the relief of the prevalent misery from disease, that its ravages form the natural or positive check, or, as Dr. Short terms it, a “terrible corrective” to the pressure of population on the means of subsistence.
In the most crowded districts, which have been the subject of the present inquiry, the facts do not justify this impression; they show that the theory is inapplicable to the present circumstances of the population. How erroneous the inferences are in their unrestrained generality, which assume that the poverty or the privation which is sometimes the consequence,—is always the cause, of the disease, will have been seen from such evidence as that adduced from Glasgow and Spitalfields, proving that the greater proportion of those attacked by disease are in full work at the time; and the evidence from the fever hospitals, that the greatest proportion of the patients are received in high bodily condition. If wages be taken as the test of the means of subsistence, it may be asked how are such facts to be reconciled as these, that at a time when wages in Manchester were 10s. per head weekly on all employed in the manufactories, including children or young persons in the average, so that if three or four members of a family were employed, the wages of a family would be 30s. or 40s. weekly, the average chances of life to all of the labouring classes were only 17 years; whilst in the whole of Rutlandshire, where the wages were certainly not one half that amount, we find the mean chances of life to every individual of the lowest class were 37 years? Or, to take another instance, that whilst in Leeds, where, according to Mr. Baker’s report, the wages of the families of the worst-conditioned workers were upwards of 1l. 1s. per week, and the chances of life amongst the whole labouring population of the borough were only 19 years; whilst in the county of Wilts, where the labourer’s family would not receive much more than half that amount of wages in money, and perhaps not two-thirds of money’s worth in money and produce together, we find the average chances of life to the labouring classes 32 years?