The next table (No. 8) is one in use by Mr. Finlaison, the actuary at the National Debt Office, prepared from various sources of information. It has been tried by the experience of a large benefit society in Bethnal Green, and the allowance for sickness was found to be low as compared with the sickness occurring amongst the labouring classes in that district.
The account given by Mr. Tait, of his investigation of the sickness which had prevailed amongst 335 persons in 180 families, exhibited in column No. 5, is as follows:—
“The parts visited may be considered a fair specimen of the Edinburgh wynds and closes. They consist of Gillon’s and Gibb’s Closes, Canongate, Blackfriars’ Wynd, Bremot’s and Skinner’s Closes, High Street, and Meal-market Stairs, Cowgate. The drainage of all these places is bad; the sewers are without exception open, and those in Gillon’s and Gibb’s Closes being nearly on a dead level, keep these places constantly in a filthy condition. The poverty of the inhabitants who reside in Gibb’s Close, especially, is also extreme, five out of seven families living in apartments without furniture. The ventilation in general is also bad: several apartments are so close that it is difficult for a person when he first enters them to breathe. In several instances I had to retreat to the door to write down my notes, as I found the stench and close atmosphere produce a sickening sensation which, on one occasion, terminated in vomiting. Although some of the apartments visited were tidy and clean, in general they were the reverse. It is impossible to conceive or describe the filthy condition of some of them. Many of them were very small, and others rather capacious, considering the quantity of furniture they contained. The diseases mentioned were such as to throw the persons affected out of employment. There were many cases of slight and continued ailment of which no notice was taken. No case of rheumatism was taken down unless so severe as to lay the person entirely off work.
“About 180 families were visited, but only 117 of them had been one year and upwards in their present dwelling: all the cases of sickness occurred between Martinmas, 1840, and Martinmas, 1841, and none of the patients,” i. e. of whom any account was taken, “were under ten years of age,” those under that age being intentionally excluded.
Mr. Hill states, that he has no doubt the results, which will be apparent from the examination of the several tables which are placed in juxta-position, would be corroborated by similar returns obtained from other well-regulated prisons in Scotland. The returns from the prisons in England up to the year 1834–5 (which do not, however, give the days of sickness, but only the number of prisoners attacked with sickness during the period for which the return was made) further corroborate these results. Even in the Milbank Penitentiary, the situation of which is insalubrious, the average annual amount of sickness to the prisoners who are confined two years and a half is only about eight days to each person, which, for the average ages, is little above the standard obtained from the experience of the East India Company’s labourers. The sickness amongst the metropolitan police is about 10½ days per annum for each of the force, 2¾ per cent. being constantly on the sick-list. The sickness in the army is on the average 14½ days each soldier. Mr. Finlaison informs me he can venture to state, that were any benefit society to use scales of premiums founded on the prison experience, they would inevitably be insolvent in less than three years.
M. Villermé has shown the diminution of mortality that has taken place in the prisons of France, chiefly from stricter attention to cleanliness, ventilation, and diet, to be equally striking. At Lyons, from 1800 to 1806, the annual mortality in the prisons was 1 in 19; from 1806 to 1812, it was 1 in 31; from 1812 to 1819, it was 1 in 34; and from 1820 to 1826, 1 in 43: a similar amelioration has also been remarked in the prisons of Rouen, and some other large towns in that kingdom.
The following is a summary return of the diseases of the duration of each, amongst the population of the wynds, examined by Mr. Tait:—
| Nature of Disease. | No. of Cases. | Average duration of Disease. | No. of Deaths. | No. of Families visited. | No. of Persons visited. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weeks. | |||||
| Disease of Lungs | 23 | 5½ | 1 | 117 | 335 |
| Rheumatism | 9 | 9 | |||
| Accidents | 9 | 4½ | |||
| Erysipelas | 3 | 8 | |||
| Inflammation of Throat | 3 | 5 | |||
| Fever | 15 | 5¼ | 1 | ||
| Palsy | 4 | 1 | |||
| Dropsy | 1 | 7 | |||
| Disease of Liver | 1 | ||||
| Jaundice | 1 | 4 | |||
| Carbuncle | 1 | 5 | |||
| Affection of Urinary Organs | 1 | 17 | |||
| Acute affection of Brain | 2 | 3 | 1 | ||
| Small-pox | 2 | 5 | 1 | ||
| Opthalmia | 1 | 6 | |||
| Whitlow | 1 | 3 | |||
| Lumbago | 2 | 7 | |||
| Eruptive disease | 1 | 9 | |||
| Inflammation of Stomach | 1 | ||||
| Ague | 1 | 4 | |||
| Abscess of Loins | 1 | 5 | |||
| Total | 83 | 5 | 117 | 335 |
It may be safely pronounced that if such an amount of sickness were known to prevail in a prison containing between 300 and 400 prisoners, the circumstance would excite public alarm and attention.
Any of the preceding tables of the lower amounts of sickness may be taken as practicable standards of the extent to which it were possible, by the removal of the causes of disease, to bring the health of the labouring population.