In the course of the Factory Commission of Inquiry in 1834, we ascertained that the wages of upwards of 40,000 employed in the cotton mills, of whom two-thirds were below the adolescent stage, amounted, on the average, to 10s. 5d. per week. Up to the beginning of the present year the wages of those in work were not lower. Mr. Finlaison’s table, therefore, will best represent the existing pecuniary charge of sickness from the loss of wages to a family in such a district in ordinary seasons of employment. The actual charge of sickness in time lost every year, as represented by the experience of the sickness tables before cited, would be as follows:—
| Age. | Experience of the Wynds of Edinburgh. | Experience of Benefit Societies in Scotland. | Mr. Finlaison. | Experience under Sanitary Measures. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Days, &c. | Days, &c. | Days, &c. | Days, &c. | |
| Man, 40 | 15·1 | 6·9 | 9·2 | 2·75 |
| Woman, 30 | 11·0 | 4·2 | 6·33 | 2·10 |
| Child, 15 | 3·5 | 0·2 | 5·18 | 0·17 |
| Total per family | 29·6 | 11·3 | 20·71 | 5·02 |
The experience of the effect of sanitary measures proves the possibility of the reduction of sickness in the worst districts to at least one-third of the existing amount. Amidst classes somewhat better situated, it were possible to reduce the sickness to less than one-third; it were an under estimate to take the probable reduction at one-half. Taking it, however, at one-half, by the new payment of 1½d., or say 2d., weekly for drainage, the occupants of the tenements will save 7½d. of the weekly contribution for an allowance of 10s. per week each during sickness. But the allowance insured to be paid during sickness only replaces the earnings: the sickness, besides its own misery, entails the expense of medical attendance, which, at the usual rate of insurance in medical clubs, would be 5s. or 6s. per annum for such a family. This would also be reduced one-half, making the total family saving at the least 9d. weekly. But the single payment for structural alterations is to be regarded as general, and as a means of affecting the whole of the objects for the whole of the population. For this 2d. each tenement, or 1d. each family, then, they will not only save double the weekly amount, but they will save, in the wear and tear of shoes and clothes, from having a well-drained and well-cleansed instead of a wet and miry district to traverse; they will also save the sickness itself, and each individual will gain a proportionate extension of a more healthy life. In a district where the wages are not one-half the amount above stated, the expenditure for efficient means of prevention would still leave a surplus of gain to the labourer.
These are the chief gains on the side of the labourer; but in general every labourer over and above what he consumes himself, produces enough to repay the interest on capital and cost of superintendence or the profits of the employer. The loss of this extra production is the loss of the community during the whole time the services of the labourer are abridged by sickness or death. To this loss is to be added, where the labourer has made no reserve, the loss of the cost of his unproductive maintenance as a pauper, and of medical attendance during sickness.
The existing insurance charge, then, represents the existing charge on the labouring classes from the loss of wages consequent on sickness; to which charge might be added the existing additional charge denoted by the insurance on account of the abridged duration of life and more frequent deaths. The aggregate charge for structural improvements, though amounting to so many millions as a first outlay, is still, for the reasons above stated, only a means of obtaining an incalculably greater gain. But it will be shown that the attainment of that gain is dependent on securities for the application of science to the efficient execution of the combined structural means of prevention. If these were to be no better than those in use in the greater part of the metropolis and the towns throughout the country, and the outlay for drainage were to be an outlay for receptacles to serve as the means of accumulating decomposing deposits, and as latent magazines of pestilential gases, to be themselves cleansed from time to time of the accumulations at a great expense, or to be discharged to pollute the natural streams of the country, then the aggregate expenditure would, to the amount of the inefficiency, be an aggregate of so many millions of money spent in waste.
The immediate cost of sickness and loss of employment falls differently in different parts of the country, but on whatsoever fund it does fall, it will be a gain to apply to the means of prevention that fund which is and must needs otherwise continue to be more largely applied to meet the charge of maintenance and remedies. Admitting, however, as a fact the misconception intended to be obviated, that the necessary expense of structural arrangements will be an immediate charge instead of an immediate means of relief to the labouring classes;—in proof that they have, in ordinary times, not only the means of defraying increased public rates but increased rents, I refer to the fact that the amount expended in ardent spirits (exclusive of wines), tobacco, snuff, beer, &c., consumed chiefly by them, cannot be much less than from 45,000,000l. to 50,000,000l. per annum in the United Kingdom. By an estimate which I obtained from an eminent spirit merchant, of the cost to the consumer of the British spirits on which duty is paid, the annual expenditure on them alone, chiefly by the labouring classes, cannot be less than 24,000,000l. per annum. If visible evidence of the means of payment were needed I would point to every gin-palace in the metropolis, or to similar places throughout the country, which are chiefly supported from the expenditure of the class of persons who are overcrowded and lodge most wretchedly, and its duty-paying building materials represents a portion of the money available as rent for abodes of comparative comfort. The cost of one dram per week would nearly defray the expense of the structural arrangements of drainage, &c., by which some of the strongest provocatives to the habit of drunkenness would be removed. In illustration of the extent of the means of defraying such expenses, even in some of the poorer districts, I would cite the following statement of the minister of the parish of Stevenston, in Ayrshire, given in the last statistical account from that parish:—
“When the survey by the present incumbent was completed in 1836, the population stood as follows:—
| Number of families | 833 |
| Number of population | 3681.” |
The report further states—
“There are in the parish no less than 33 inns, and public-houses, and whisky-shops. A few inns are needed for the accommodation of travellers, and for the transaction of business; but the rest serve as so many decoys to lure and destroy the thoughtless in their neighbourhood. The sale of spirits in grocers’ shops has had a most pernicious influence, especially on the female part of the community, who, when there is no danger of detection, are tempted to add a dram to the other commodities purchased. But the most pernicious practice is that of several families clubbing that they may drink together cheaply in one of their own houses; for in this way husbands, wives, and children all share in the debauch, and drunken habits are perpetuated from generation to generation.