| Year 1839, | W. W. fl. 190·48, or 31 x. per day. |
| 1840, | W. W. fl. 250·50, or 41 x. per day. |
Also on an average one or two individuals could not work on account of illness.
To both the spinning works of Herrn von Eltz and Herrn Roulet there is attached a sick-fund, the exact rules of which I am not acquainted with. In the print-works of Dubois, Dupasquier, and Co., the printers have a sick-fund amongst themselves, out of which the hands in work assist those who are unable to work, according to the circumstances. Since the hands in the screw-works are not, like the spinners, a steady, fixed class of workers, but a more fluctuating class, since it often happens that members of the same family are employed in different factories, and it is difficult to separate into heads the number of individuals who have received medical aid; the annexed table for 1840 will give a tolerably correct view of the state of sickness in the various works, only with regard however to the numbers working, leaving the other members of the family out of consideration. It is to be observed here, that the physician by whom these statements have been drawn up is appointed exclusively to the screw-works and the two spinning manufactories. The hands from the print-works go also to other physicians, of whom there are several in Neunkirchen; hence is explained the apparently small number of persons from the print-works who have received medical aid from him.
| Screw works of Brevillier and Co. | Spinning works of Frid. Eltz and Carl Roulet together. | Print works of Von Dubois, Dupasquier, and Co. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| About 180 | men | 160 | men | 180 | men | |
| 20 | women | 200 | women | 90 | women | |
| 50 | children | 150 | children | 90 | children | |
| 250 | persons. | 510 | persons. | 360 | persons. | |
| In 1840, having received medical treatment: | ||||||
| Catarrh | 14 | 30 | 8 | |||
| Rheumatism. | 88 | 40 | 20 | |||
| Gastric | 12 | 25 | 4 | |||
| Intermittent fever | 5 | 16 | 3 | |||
| Nervous fever | 3 | 10 | 3 | |||
| Inflammations | 16 | 36 | 10 | |||
| Various diseases | 17 | 36 | 8 | |||
| Scrofula | 0 | 8 | 0 | |||
| Accidents | 7 | 12 | 4 | |||
| 92 | 213 | 60 | ||||
| Deaths in the screw works | 1 man, tubercles in the lungs. |
| Deaths in the screw works | 1 man, inflammation of the lungs. |
| Deaths in the spinning works | 1 man, tubercles in the lungs. |
| Deaths in the print works | 1 man, apoplexy. |
| Deaths in the print works | 1 man, fatal accident. |
| 5 men. |
| A Tabular View of the Deaths in the various Spinning Manufactories, as a means of comparing them with the Deaths occurring in the rest of the Population, taken from the Registers of Deaths in the under-mentioned Parishes. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year. | Parish. | Total Population. | Deaths. | Proportion of Deaths per Cent. | Spinning Works. | Mill Population. | Deaths. | Proportion of Deaths per Cent. | Age of Death of the Mill Population. | |||||||||||||||
| Under 3 years. | Between 3 and 6 years. | Between 6 and 9 years. | Between 10 and 14 years. | Between 15 and 18 years. | Between 19 and 25 years. | Between 26 and 30 years. | Between 32 and 36 years. | Between 38 and 40 years. | Between 41 and 44 years. | Between 45 and 47 years. | Between 50 and 54 years. | Between 55 and 58 years. | Between 60 and 64 years. | Between 65 and 68 years. | Between 70 and 75 years. | |||||||||
| 1840 | Günselsdorf | 1,500 | 48 | 3.2 | Teesdorf | 700 | 21 | 3.0 | 9 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| 1840 | Pottendorf | 4,000 | 157 | 4.0 | Pottendorf | 1,200 | 42 | 3.5 | 13 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| 1840 | Pottenstein | 3,000 | 111 | 3.7 | Fatnafeld | 500 | 19 | 3.8 | 11 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||||||||
| During 10 years | Schönau | 860 | 354 | 4.1 | Schönau | 300 | 132 | 3.4 | 46 | 6 | 5 | 23 | 7 | 12 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| During 10 years | Sollenau | 750 | 288 | 3.8 | Sollenau | 360 | 115 | 3.2 | 59 | 1 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 2 | |
| The average of 7 years | Schwadorf | 1,700 | 62 | 3.7 | Schwadorf | 550 | 13 | 2.3 | ||||||||||||||||
| During 2 years | Steinabürkl | 640 | 33 | 2.5 | Steinabürkl | 394 | 16 | 2.0 | 13 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||||
| During 2 years | Teresimfeld | 1,200 | 78 | 3.3 | Felydorf | 700 | 28 | 2.0 | 19 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| Total | 13,650 | 1,131 | 3.8 | 4,704 | 386 | 3.3 | 170 | 12 | 17 | 34 | 21 | 25 | 12 | 15 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 6 | 6 | 14 | 8 | 9 | ||
23.—Typhus Fever, the vast amount of, produced among the Poor of Liverpool from want of Ventilation and Cleanliness.
The typhus, or low contagious fever, prevails in all large cities and towns to a degree that those are not aware of who have not turned their attention to the subject, or whose occupations do not lead them to mix with the labouring poor. In Liverpool it has been supposed that this disease is seldom to be met with; and it is certainly true, that the upper classes of the inhabitants are not often subjected to its ravages. When the extent to which it is constantly present among the poor shall be proved by authentic documents, this circumstance will serve to demonstrate the narrow sphere of the contagion, and to show how much it is within the limits of human power to lessen the frequency of the disease.
Of the inhabitants of Liverpool, it is ascertained that about 9500 live in cellars underground, and upwards of 9000 in back houses, which in general have an imperfect ventilation, especially in the new streets on the south side of the town, where a pernicious practice has been introduced of building houses to be let to labourers, in small confined courts, which have a communication with the street by a narrow aperture, but no passage for the air through them. Among the inhabitants of the cellars and these back houses the typhus is constantly present; and the number of persons under this disease that apply for medical assistance to the charitable institutions, the public will be astonished to hear, exceeds, on an average, 3000 annually. For the ten years preceding 1797, there were, on an average, 119 patients ill of fever constantly on the books of the dispensary. Of convalescents, unfit for labour, the average number will be nearly as great. Thus, in Liverpool, 240 of the poor may be considered as constantly rendered incapable of earning their subsistence by this single disease; and as the poor seldom lay up any part of their earnings for a season of sickness, the expense of their maintenance must, in one form or other, fall on the public. If we take this as low as 10l. for each, it will amount to 2400l. annually.
Though the cure of this disease is a principal object of our charitable institutions in Liverpool, it is to be lamented that hitherto little or nothing has been done for its prevention. The infection arises from a want of cleanliness and ventilation, and its influence is promoted by damp, fatigue, sorrow, and hunger. A vigilant exercise of all the means of prevention might, in a short period, supersede the use of hospitals, by extinguishing the disease; a prospect in which the philanthropist might more safely indulge, if he could calculate with the same confidence on the wisdom as on the power of his species.[[63]]