The group of cases of the mining population from Alston and Garrigill, it appears to me, will, when considered, afford an example of the powerful nature of the physical elements of deterioration. In that district the employers and persons of the higher classes have paid great attention to maintain the means of moral improvement. They have only not been made aware of the practicability or of the importance of sustaining the physical condition of the workpeople, as exemplified in respect to the same description of labourers at Camborne.
The duration of life amongst the mining population of the lead-miners at Alston and Garrigill, and the adjacent district, is about 14 years less than that given by the Swedish tables. Their physical condition was depressed. “The young men appeared very healthy, but exceedingly few of them,” says Dr. Mitchell, “were of a large size; and in general it may be said they are of a small size.” He states that in moral condition they are most exemplary:—
“The means of education in Alston parish are extensive: there is the grammar-school, the master of which must be acquainted with Latin, but he gives a general education; there is a charity-school, and a school kept by a master on his own account; there is the school of the London Lead Company at Nenthead, at which other children besides those of their own workpeople are allowed to attend. There is a school at Garrigill Gate, and one at Tynehead, and another at Leadgate; there are also many dame schools and 10 Sunday schools. * * * I procured the catalogues of several libraries, and the books are such as to convey valuable information, and are far superior to most of the works which are found in the catalogues of the institutions called literary and scientific in and about the metropolis. * * * As to the intellectual condition of the people, it is decidedly superior to that of any district of England of which I have any knowledge. The witnesses uniformly manifested a clearness of comprehension of the inquiries made of them, and gave distinct replies, and added of themselves other information hearing on the subject. Almost all of them could sign their evidence, and most of them wrote exceedingly well. * * * The evidence of the employers and the parochial authorities, as well as of the men themselves, fully proves that there is a very general sobriety, and that the contrary practice is exceedingly rare. * * * Offences against property are very rare. It may be doubted whether we may consider it a proof of the honesty of the people, that pigs of lead may be seen lying by the road sides and in the fells as much exposed as so many stones. There is no magistrate nearer to Alston than a distance of 14 miles. Offences against the law are very rare.”
Instances have been frequently presented in the course of this inquiry of the moral degradation of the children of workpeople, and of the workpeople themselves, who have once been what those miners now are in moral condition; but the cases taken from the pauper roll of the union will serve to show that even a good education will not, of itself, sustain such a body of workmen against the physical causes of depression. The group of cases of widowhood, when considered, will serve to show that the causes in question create the evils of which they are supposed to be natural correctives.
With such an educated class of workmen, the obtainment of a place and the wages of an adult must be the necessary preliminary to a marriage, and unless such place or wages were obtained, the young workman would either remain single or seek employment further a-field. But we will suppose, for illustration, that a casualty occurs, such as the last death on the list, J. M., where a young miner who has married and has a wife and two children is prematurely swept away by an epidemic at 21 years of age, leaving a widow and two destitute orphan children dependent on poor relations, or on the ratepayers. The first mentioned, say S. H., then takes the vacant place of work, marries, and is killed at 34 years of age by “an accident in the mine,” leaving a widow and seven orphan children. This third vacancy in the place of work is occupied by another miner H. Y., who marries and works until he is 45, when he is killed by “consumption,” leaving a widow and five children.
Such casualties do not of course actually so fall on any one place of work, but the vacancies so created in different places at the younger periods of life must be and are supplied by new hands coming into the employment, and marrying as a consequence of that employment, and the succession will fairly represent 1 he mode in which the vacancies created by the various causes of death displayed in the last table and in the other tables of the causes of premature widowhood and orphanage occur.
In works where the average period of working ability is extended to the natural period of superannuation, which the evidence shows that a combination of internal and external sanitary measures maybe expected to give, namely an average of full 60 years, the account for one place would be one superannuated workman and one widow, and a family of four or five well-grown children, who, having received parental care during that period, will probably all have obtained, before its termination, the means of independent self-support. Whereas with a population of only 15 or 20 years of working ability, the same place of work may during the same period have been filled by two generations and one-fourth of workpeople, not one of which has brought all the children dependent on it to maturity or a condition for self-support; and the account of widowhood and orphanage will frequently for the same place of work stand thus:—
| Workmen prematurely Dead. | Orphan Children. | Years’ loss of Support. |
|---|---|---|
| J. M. 1 widow | 2 | 39 |
| S. H. 1 widow | 7 | 26 |
| H. Y. 1 widow | 5 | 15 |
That is to say, three widows instead of one, and three sets of stunted and unhealthy children dependent for such various periods, as those above specified, and competing for employment at the same place, instead of one set of healthy children arrived at the age of working ability for self-support. The occupation of the places of work by a comparatively young and procreative population, brought forward by the premature removal of the middle aged and the aged workers, by the various causes of premature deaths—the acceleration of births by premature deaths in infancy as stated in a preceding note—will, I apprehend, sufficiently clearly account for the generally increased proportions of births in those districts where the rate of mortality is high; and it will scarcely be necessary to give further illustrations of the dreadful fallacy which tends to an acquiescence in the continuance of the causes of pestilence and premature mortality as correctives of the pressure of population.”
Though the deaths from accidents bear only a small proportion to the deaths from disease, yet registries show that the scattered deaths from various descriptions of violence amount to an average of about 12,000 yearly, in England and Wales alone, or more than aroused the national attention in the late massacre of the troops of the empire during the war in India. The position which this class of causes occupy, in the production of destitute orphanage and widowhood, is shown in the previous tables; but these do not comprehend the whole of the effects; another class of which appear on examining the causes of pauperism: namely, the injuries which occasion permanent disablement. In an analysis of the causes of pauperism, by Mr. Simkiss, the auditor of the Wolverhampton union, the cases of which the subjoined is a list were apparent on the pauper-roll.