In the course of 40 years, during which the Austrian manufactures have arisen so near to the capital, and have been well watched by the police, such moral and physical deterioration of so large a population could not have escaped notice; but I ask where are those incontrovertible signs which an hospital or a workhouse more frequently attended or applied to by the mill population than by any other poor class of the community would be? where are those prevailing diseases? where is the increased mortality? and, lastly, where are the traces of moral and mental degradation? Certainly it would be unjust to throw the stone at those who have linked with the unavoidable demands of business circumstances which might be measured by the scale of a more fortunate and independent existence.
Dr. Mauthner states, “that the weakness of the body and constitution of the children employed in the great cotton-works in the neighbourhood is very striking.
“1st. That the race of men employed in those establishments is much less robust than that of the peasantry of the neighbouring villages.
“2nd. That bauchscropheln and scrophuleuse consumption are not uncommon; that inflammatory diseases are very rare.
“3rd. That premature old age and early death is the common fate.”
Even supposing that since the establishment of the spinning-works there could have been created a peculiar race of people, still the supposition could not prove more than that the constitution of the workers had been modified by their employment and their mode of living, since experience shows that the duration of life is not shorter than that of the other working classes.
2dly. That the above-mentioned diseases principally affect children of the earliest age, the former about the fifth year, the last about the seventh year; and that it is to be premised that the children who never work in the mill before their ninth year, come sometimes with the disease already developed upon them. The children of the mill hands are, indeed, less attacked by this disease than the children of the poor agricultural labourer, because they are generally better housed and clothed than these. That inflammatory diseases seldom appear is no sign of a weak constitution, since, on the one hand, these seldom appear amongst children; and, on the other hand, they do show themselves amongst the adults, whenever there are external influences and inducing circumstances to produce them; and all the physicians practising in the cotton-works agree in stating that, with the exception of rheumatic affections, there are no peculiar forms of disease amongst the cotton-spinning population.
3rdly. As to the statement of premature old age and early deaths, it is one which is contradicted by all the experience of half a century. The registers of deaths made by the clergymen of the parishes give the most exact information as to the proportion of deaths. The results of these are,
1st. That the number of deaths, especially amongst the manufacturing people, is proportionally less than amongst the agricultural labourers;
2nd. That, as amongst other classes, the deaths are the most numerous of children under two years;