SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

STATISTICS,

Report to her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department, from the Poor-law COLIMASSiCHICTS, on an Inquiry into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain; with Appendices. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command other Majesty, July 1842.. . .Clotees aed Son.

TAAVELS,

Norway and her Laplanders. in 1841: with a few Hints to the Salmon•fisher. By John Milford, St. John's College, Cambridge; Author of "Observations on Italy,'

&c. &c. Murray. Firmer.

Forest Life. By the Authorof "A New Home." In two volumes. Longman and Co.

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS, The Lawyer, his Character, and Rule of Holy Life, after the manner of George Her-

bert's •• Country Parson." By Edward O'Brien, Barrister-at-Law Pickering.

REPORT ON THE SANITARY CONDITION OF THE LABOURING POOR.

ABOUT four years since, the credulous part of the town was startled by a Report from the Poor-law Commissioners, to the effect that

the elements of plague and pestilence were rife in London, and ready to sweep away the " respectable " inhabitants on the occa-

sion of any unlucky concatenation of circumstances. However, in despite ofthe wonted inflation of matter-of-fact, which characterizes the lucubrations of the Poor-law organs, and a vast quantity of parish matter treated by very parish minds, the Report was a use- ful document. It contained some valuable information, and some valuable remarks on the state of disease as depending on locality, from the physicians whose assistance the Poor-law authorities had obtained ; and it directed public attention to the sanitary condi- tion of the labouring poor, respecting matters that a somewhat strict exercise of legislative power could reach,—deficient ventilation and cleanliness, deficient drainage, and the close packing together of the domiciles of the poor; things that, having grown up with society, seemed a necessary part of it, and attracted but little remark beyond comments on the facts, by those who happened to be exposed to them. The subject, however, having been once mooted, was not allowed to slumber. Parliamentary Committees were appointed, which elicited a good many startling facts and some useful sugges- tions; Ministers wrote letters to the Poor-law Commissioners, in compliance with a wish of the House of Lords for an investigation to be made throughout England and Wales, like that to which the Metropolis had been subjected ; and the Secretary of the Poor- law Commissioners, pen in hand and nothing loath, proceeded to issue circulars and draw up instructions to the Assistant-Com- missioners, the Boards of Guardians, and their medical officers. A subsequent order directed the inquiry to be extended to Scotland ; where the parochial machinery is less complete. However, the Poor-law authorities did what they could. They wrote to the Provosts of Burghs, and to the medical officers of public institu- tions, as well as to private practitioners. These means produced from twenty to thirty regular Reports upon localities in England and Scotland, besides a vast mass of information which did not take so formal or extensive a shape. All these documents were handed over to Mr. CHADWICK to digest : the Secretary also seems to have constituted a sort of roving Commission, of which he himself formed Board and every thing else : and from the mass of facts and opinions thus elicited, he has framed the Report of which the volume before us principally consists. As regards the formal mode in which this Report is compiled, the structure is clear and methodical. The facts and their accom- panying commentary are arranged under eight beads, together with subordinate divisions, all having some bearing upon the main ob- ject in view—the actual state of the sanitary condition of the labouring population, with an exposition of its causes, and of the remedies that come within the range of legislation. The Report begins with an account of the general condition of the residences of the labouring classes, where disease is found to be most preva- lent, in nearly thirty towns or country-districts ; describing, some- times generally and sometimes more minutely, the condition of the locality, according to the notions of the reporter—which occa- sionally would involve neither more nor less than the reerection of nearly every poor man's house in the island, and a total change in the habits of the poor. Public arrangements, external to their resi- dences, by which the sanitary condition of the poor is affected, come next ; and are examined under various heads—as the drain- age of streets and houses. The internal economy and ventilation of the houses and workshops in which the lower classes live or labour, as well as the state and character of the lodging-houses, are also exhibited both in their moral and physical effects. Two curious, and, taken with limitations, valuable sections, are devoted to the chances of life in different places, (according to the cha- racter of the locality inhabited and the class of life in which the inhabitants move,) and of the effect of sanitary measures in raising the standard of longevity. A comparison of the pecuniary cost of prevention, and of attempts at cure, including the after burden of supporting the helpless survivors left behind by the alleged victims of the neglect of public hygiene, complete the main sub- jects of Mr. CHADWICK'S labours ; which subjects are further ex- hibited in an appendix, by fuller extracts from the communications of his correspondents than the nature of his text permitted. Considered as an individual production, the Report is of much value ; collecting together a great number of facts illustrative of the moral and economical condition of the poor, and suggesting things to the mind as evils, and evils capable of alleviation by enactments, which, partly from ignorance, partly from habit, many have got to consider in the light of inevitable matters, that "shall never depart out of the land." Looked at as a document emanating from public

authority, and therefore carrying with it a sort of official Ban on over and above that of the individual writers, the Report is entit d to less praise ; or, more correctly, it is not entitled to the characte of authority at all, beyond that of any professional publication to which a professional man affixes his name ; bearing internal evi- dence that it requires to be tested, not implicitly received. It ap- pears to us to be often partial, in the sense of only exhibiting parts : and frequently to put forward exceptional instances as ruling ones, or to draw general conclusions from facts which do not contain them. Sometimes it has a crotchety air,—meaning, by this term, the manner of a person with preconceived opinions, and more intent

upon shaping his collections to enforce them than to advance truth. There is also a peculiar kind of narrowness or want of heart per- vading it, such as might be supposed to characterize a parish- overseer, who merely looked at mankind as so many paupers or obnoxious to pauperism,—perhaps in his position a necessary, but by no means an ennobling view. Some of the positions derived from local truths, or perhaps from the conclusions of the local pro- pounders, are somewhat startling,—such as that low wages are not a cause of distress ; that fever is independent of distress and desti- tution ; that more disease is caused by intemperance than by want of food, (which in one sense may be true, the propounder of this maxim having himself stated that when a certain class of the poor are out of work they take cheap gin) : whilst, whether the opinions be narrow or questionable, they are put forward with a sort of Papal infallibility—the Poor-law people against the world.

In this notice it is of course only possible to touch upon isolated points, in any thing like detail. One of the most startling, to many, will be the extent to which the custom, enforced by neces- sity prevails among the lower classes, of sleeping promiscuously— for that is really the case ; and the moral evils that everywhere may be expected to flow from it.

PROMISCUOUS SLEEPING.

"In what towns did you find instances of the greatest crowding of the habi- tations? "—" In Manchester, Liverpool, Ashton-under-Lyne, and Pendleton. In a cellar in Pendleton, I recollect there were three beds in the two apart- ments of which the habitation consisted, but having no door between them ; in one of which a man and his wife slept; in another, a man, his wife and child ; and in a third, two unmarried females. In Hull, I have met with cases some- what similar : a mother about fifty years of age, and her son, I should think twenty-five, at all events above twenty-one, sleeping in the same bed, and a lodger in the same room. I have two or three instances in Hull in which a mother was sleeping with her grown-up son ; and in most cases there were other persona i

sleeping in the same room, n another bed. In a cellar in Liverpool, I found a mother and her grown-up daughters sleeping on a bed of chaff on theground in one corner of the cellar, and in the other corner three sailors had their bed. I have met with upwards of forty persons sleeping in the same room, married and single ; including, of course, children and several young adult persons of either sex. In Manchester, I could enumerate a variety of instances in which I found such promiscuous mixture of the sexes in sleeping-rooms. I may mention one : a man, his wife, and child, sleeping in one bed; in another bed, two grown-up females ; and in the same room two young men unmarried. I have met with instances of a man, his wife, and his wife's sister, sleeping in the same bed together. I have known at least half-a-dozen cases in Manchester in which that has been regularly practised, the unmarried sister being an adult." "In the course of your own inquiry, how many instances, if you were to look over your notes, of persons of different sexes sleeping promiscuously, do you think you met with? ' I think I am speaking within bounds when I say, I have among my memoranda above one hundred cases, including of course cases of persons of different sexes sleeping in the same room."

Something similar prevails in the rural districts ; and a variety of moral evils naturally flow from the practices. The same thing obtains to a much greater, indeed to a disgusting extent, in the lodging-houses for what are called "travellers,"—that is, vagrants of every kind, who roam the country without any fixed mode of earning a livelihood ; and the indecency is of course grosser. In one sense however, it may be questioned whether much moral evil is produced, the persons who frequent those houses being pretty well beyond corruption.

Two doctrines are advanced in the Report which are worth con- sideration; though if true in fact, they probably require more limi- tation than is here assigned to them,—first, that much of the dirt, over-crowding, &c. arises less from pecuniary inability to remove the evils, than from custom and indifference ; second, that the work- people, hardened by habit, will not of themselves remedy these evils even if 'they could. Here is the testimony of Mr. Tnostsost of Clitheroe.

"What is your experience in respect to the habits of the workpeople in these tenements? "—" The remark which I have to make is on the very low state of feeling prevalent among even a high class of workmen as to decency or propriety. The tenements sufficed for them when they were young; but when the female children become young women, and the boys advance to puberty, and decency requires them to have separate rooms, the usual practice of the parents is to take the young women into their own sleeping-rooms. I have one highly-respectable foreman who has one daughter aged twenty, and an- other aged twenty-two, sleeping on each side of the bed in which himself and his wife sleep. The next bed-room is filled with the younger children of both sexes, boys and girls, up to sixteen years of age. The earnings of this family must have been 50s. per week. The rent they paid was 3s. weekly, which was little more than the interest on the money invested. I have remonstrated on the indecency of such habits, and on their bad effects ; but the expense of the extra shilling a week for a house with another bed-room was considered a suf- ficient answer to my remonstrance. In my own tenements I have built the additional room, and notwithstanding the remonstrances I have required the additional rent. When they have remonstrated, I have told them of the fact that the cost of the additional room would only be a beneficial deduction from the money spent in liquor."

A CHOICE OF EVILS.

In the rural districts, the very defects of the cottages, which let in the fresh air in spite of all the efforts of the inmates to exclude it, often obviate the effects of the overcrowding and defective ventilation. It has been observed, that while the labouring population of several districts have had no shelter but huts similar to those described by Dr. Gilly as the habitations of the Border peasantry, which afforded a free passage for currents of air, they were not sub- Jed to fevers, though they were to rheumatism ; but when, through the good intentions of the proprietors, such habitations were provided SA were deemed more comfortable from excluding the weather effectually, but which from the neglect of ventilation afforded recesses for stagnating air and impurities which they had not the means or had not a sufficient love of cleanliness to remove, though rheumatism was excluded febrile infection was generated.

There is, as we have already observed, a curious section on the duration of life among different classes in different places; which, besides the investigation it suggests, may afford a hint to the inde- pendent, who can live where they please. It has not, however, the practical use for insurance-offices, which Mr. Cum:isms, travelling out of his record to correct their actuaries, supposes. The tables of life-insurance concern select, not promiscuous lives ; and are now tested, if not wholly calculated, from tables formed on the ex- perience of the older insurance-offices. From those offices, also, children are practically excluded; the cases being rare in which insurances on young lives are needed. In the following statistics children are embraced; and as they die in a much larger propor- tion among the poor than among the other classes, that consider- ably modifies the otherwise startling dif&rences between the three classes of society.

DATIL Number of Average Age Deaths. of Deceased. 146 Gentlemen, professional persons, and their families 55 244 Tradesmen and their families 37 896 Mechanics, labourers, and their families 25

UNIO2iS IN THE COUNTY OF WILTS.

119 Gentlemen and persons engaged in professions, and their families 50 218 Farmers and their families 48 2,061 Agricultural labourers and their families 33

MANCHESTER AND RUTLANDSHIHE.

Average age of Death. In Manchester. In Rutlandshire.

Years.

ears.

Professional persons and gentry, and their fa- milies 38 52 Tradesmen and their families (in Rutlandshire, farmers and graziere are included with shop- keepers) 20 41 Mechanics, labourers, and their families 17 38

Cornwall does not sustain its high repute for healthiness, in these reports.

TRURO.

Number of Average Age Deaths. of Deceased.

33 Professsional persons or gentry, and their families 40 years. 138 Persons engaged in trade, or similarly circumstanced, and

their families 33 447 Labourers, artisans, and others similarly circumstanced, and

their families 28

Liverpool, however, is the most startling of all.

LIVERPOOL, 1840.

Number of Average Age Deaths. of Damned.

137 Gentry and professional persons, &c 35 years. 1,738 Tradesmen and their families 22 5,597 Labourers, mechanics, and servants, &c. 15

The returns are limited, but so far as they go, Rutlandshire is the mast healthy county of England, and Bath the most healthy place. Derby stands well, but the numbers are too few in the pro- fessional class to afford any determinate conclusion. In Bethnal Green and Whitechapel, the highest class reach the same average, forty-five years ; in Leeds and the Kensington Union, forty-four years ; in the Strand Union, forty-three years. Manufacturing-dis- tricts do not seem favourable to " multitude of days." The pre- eminence of Rutlandshire, and even of Bath, as regards the more respectable classes, probably arises from the majority of instances consisting of pure gentry, who escape the corroding cares and anxieties of professional life; Bath, moreover, receiving a good many aged rich persons, who go there to try if they can live for ever. Again, the enormous disproportion between the lower classes of Manchester and Liverpool and the agricultural districts, may partly spring from improvident early marriages or illegitimate births predominating in a greater degree, as well as from impure air and greater distress. At all events, be the causes what they may, these statistics say little for the "hives of industry."

The conclusions at which Mr. CHADWICK arrives involve a va- riety of regulations and supervision over the erection, drainage, yentilation, and cleansing of houses ; not essentially differing, except m. minuteness and stringency, from those suggested to the Com- mittee of the Commons, or embodied in Lord NORMANDY'S bill. Lodging-houses he would license, and subject to regulation and visitation by the Police in the same manner as public-houses : he would also establish a staff or corps of Engineers, to whom should be committed the planning and execution of the drainage, supply of water, &c. for the whole of the kingdom.

This volume is not printed as a Parliamentary Paper, but by ". command of her Majesty," to be presented to the Houses of Par- bament. It cannot therefore be procured at the usual office for official documents, nor do we know whether it can be purchased at all. The imprint in the titlepage is CLowes, for her Majesty's Sta- tionery Office.