total weight; five females gained 19 lbs.; twenty-two males, confined
during twelve months, gained 3 lbs.; eight females, during the same
period, gained 5 lbs.; seven males in eighteen months gained 24 lbs.;
and two females 10 lbs. At Edinburgh also they were weighed, and, on
the whole, they gained. See Appendix, statement of the periods of
confinement and weight of prisoners at the commencement and
termination of their imprisonment.
Footnote 34:
It is observed by Dr. Wilson, in reference to the mortality in the
navy, that “the mortality from wounds is inconsiderable compared with
that occasioned by disease. Much misconception has prevailed on this
subject in the public mind. Deaths in action, by the general
excitement attending them, from being published in official despatches
and perpetuated in gazettes, make more than a due impression; for it
is found, when accurately reckoned, that they are few in comparison
with those resulting from ordinary diseases. Sir G. Blane, when
writing under the common impression, and without the corrections of
figures, alleges that half the mortality in war periods is
attributable to wounds received in battle and other external causes;
but he gives a very different account when he dismisses
unauthenticated notions to deal with numerical facts. He then states,
that from 1780 till 1783, though in that period, besides single
actions, engagements with forts, &c., the great battle of the 12th of
April was fought, the mortality from disease, compared with that from
external causes, was as 3 to 1; in 1779, according to his statement,
the former was to the latter as 8 to 1.” During the last 41 months of
the peninsular war, whilst 24,930 privates died of disease, only 8899
died of wounds, or were killed in battle. The deaths during the
campaign were,—of the privates in battle, 4·2 per cent.; of disease,
11·9 per cent.: of officers, in battle, 6·6 per cent.; of disease, 3·7
per cent. per annum. The average deaths in four battles, Talavera,
Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo, were 3·9 per cent. of officers,
2·11 of privates. In the peninsular war there were generally 22½ per
cent. of men absent on account of sickness; and a reduction of the
proportions of sick to 6 per cent. would have set free 10,000 men from
the hospitals to be added to the effective force of the
army.—_Official Returns._ The highest increased charge for insurance
of military men during the peninsular campaign was 10 guineas per
cent. The extra premiums taken on the insurance of military lives on
service in India and China are from 3 to 5 guineas per cent.,
governed, however, by the unfavourable chances of the climate to which
the campaign leads, as well as by the increased risks from battle. The
extra premiums on naval officers in hostile service is usually from 3
to 5 guineas per cent., governed by the consideration of the climate.
Footnote 35:
_Vide_ Appendix for estimate and detailed specification. From some
recent experiments made with the egg-shaped sewers or main drains, it
appears that drains of sufficient size might be made at one-third less
than the price for sewers in the annexed estimate. In many instances,
main drains costing one-half the sum would suffice.
Footnote 36:
As an instance of the little account the manufacturing workpeople have
made of such charges, it is mentioned by Sir Charles Shaw that, on the
introduction of the new police force into Manchester, he found the
workpeople in the habit of paying 6_d._ per week each to the old watch
for calling them up. He put a stop to the practice, as being one which
interfered with the regular duties of the police, and as being founded
on a habit which might be corrected. The employers, however,
complained of the interruption of the practice, and requested that it
might be renewed. Sir Charles, considering that 6_d._ was too high a
charge, offered to allow the police to call up the workpeople at 2_d._
per week each, provided the masters, to save the trouble of the weekly
collection, deducted the amount from the weekly wages, and paid it
over to the police fund. The answer to the proposal was, that the
workpeople would sooner pay 6_d._ of their own accord than have 1_d._
deducted from their wages by their masters.
Footnote 37:
The experience of France is precisely similar. In a work of great
authority on the lower classes of that country, it is stated that the
secret of the existence of so many filthy, infected, and miserable
habitations, is simply that the persons who pay two sous for their
lodging at night spend ten sous on brandy by day.
Footnote 38:
A butter merchant informed me that the value of the Irish butter was
deteriorated to a greater extent than they were aware of, from its
being frequently made in close smoky hovels instead of in clean and
well-ventilated dairies, as in England.
Footnote 39:
In an inquiry, from house to house, into the condition of the
labouring population in the parishes of St. Margaret and St. John
Westminster, it was found that, out of a total of 5366 houses, 2352
were occupied for terms under one year, and that no less than 1834 had
been occupied during periods from one to six months only.
Footnote 40:
It appears that the mortality for five years, ending 1839, was in
Catrine 1 to 54.20, whilst in Glasgow for the same period it was 1 to
31.
Footnote 41:
Mohl. Polizei-Wissenschaft, vol. i. page 135, Note.
Footnote 42:
“Or shall on the said bridge, or in any street or place within the
distance aforesaid (all the legislation was restricted to “fifty
yards”) from either end thereof, hoop, fire, cleanse, wash, or scald
any cask or tub; or hew, saw, or cut any stone, wood or timber; or
bore any timber; or make or repair, or wash or clean any coach,
chaise, waggon, sledge or other carriage, or the wheel, body, springs,
or other part of any coach, chaise, waggon, sledge, or other carriage
(except such as may want immediate repair from any sudden accident on
the spot, and which cannot be conveniently removed for that purpose);
or wet, slack, or mix any lime; or wet, mix or make any mortar; or
shoe, bleed, or farry any horse or other beast, unless in case of
sudden accident; or clean, dress, drive, or turn loose any horse, or
other beast, or cattle; or show or expose any stallion or stonehorse;
or show or expose, or exercise or expose to sale any horse or other
beast; or kill or slaughter, or scald, singe, dress or cut up any
animal, either wholly or in part; or cause or permit any blood to run
from any slaughter-house, butcher’s-shop or shamble into any of the
streets or places within the distance aforesaid from the said bridge;
or shall sell or assist in selling by auction or public sale, any
cattle, goods, wares, merchandize, or thing or things whatsoever; or
hang up or expose to sale, or cause or permit to be hanged up, placed
or exposed to sale, any goods, wares, or merchandize whatever, or any
fruit, vegetables, or garden-stuff, butchers’ meat, or other matter or
thing upon the said bridge; or in, or upon, or so as to project over
or upon the footway or carriage-way of the said streets or places
within the distance aforesaid, or beyond the line, or on the outside
of the window or windows of the house, shop, or place at which the
same shall be so hanged up, placed, or exposed to sale, or so as to
obstruct or incommode the passage of any person or carriage: or leave
open after sunset the door or window of any cellar, or other
underground room or apartment, without having placed or left a
sufficient light therein to warn and prevent persons passing in the
streets and public places within the distance aforesaid from the said
bridge, from falling into such cellars or other underground rooms or
apartments; or bait, or cause to be baited any bull or other animal;
or throw at any cock or fowl in the manner called cock-throwing, or
set up any fowl to be thrown at in such manner; or play at foot-ball,
or at any other game on the said bridge, or within such distance as
aforesaid, to the annoyance of any inhabitant or inhabitants, or
passenger or passengers,” * * * * “or wilfully permit or suffer any
horse, or other beast or cattle which such person may be riding or
driving, or leading, to go thereon; or shall tie or fasten any horse
or other cattle to any house, wall, fence, post, tree, or other thing
whatsoever, across any of the highways, footways, or foot-pavements of
the said bridge, or within the distance aforesaid.”
Footnote 43:
Pay of the corps of Royal Engineers for the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, consisting of 241 officers, viz.—5
colonels-commandant, at 2_l._ 14_s._ 9½_d._ per diem each; 10
colonels, at 1_l._ 6_s._ 3_d._ ditto; 20 lieutenant-colonels, at
18_s._ 1_d._ ditto; 5 lieutenant-colonels, at 16_s._ 1_d._ ditto; 40
captains, at 11_s._ 1_d._ ditto; 40 second captains, at 11_s._ 1_d._
ditto; 80 first lieutenants, at 6_s._ 10_d._ ditto; 40 second
lieutenants, at 5_s._ 1_d._ ditto;—total, 48,093_l._
Pay of the corps of Royal Sappers and Miners for general service,
consisting of 961 men, officers included; viz.—Staff: 1 brigade-major,
at 10_s._ per diem; 1 adjutant, at 10_s._ ditto; 1 quarter-master, at
8_s._ ditto; 2 serjeant-majors, at 4_s._ 6½_d._ ditto each; 3
quarter-master serjeants, at 4_s._ 0½_d._ ditto; 1 bugle-major, at
4_s._ 0½_d._ ditto;—total 972_l._ One company consisting of—1 colour
serjeant. at 3_s._ 0½_d._ per diem; 3 serjeants, at 2_s._ 6½_d._ ditto
each; 4 corporals, at 2_s._ 2½_d._ ditto; 4 second corporal, at 1_s._
10¾_d._ ditto; 75 carpenters, masons, bricklayers, smiths, wheelers,
coopers, collar-makers, painters, tailors, miners, and 2 buglers, at
1_s._ 2½_d._ per diem each;—total 3,465_l._—_Ordnance Estimates_ for
1841.
Footnote 44:
It may be of interest to observe that as the whole population grows in
age, the annual increase in numbers may be deemed to be equivalent to
an annual increase of numbers of the average ages of the community. If
they were maintained on the existing average of territory to the
population in England, the additional numbers would require an annual
extension of one fifty-seventh of the present territory of Great
Britain, possessing the average extent of roads, commons, hills, and
unproductive land. The extent of new territory required annually would
form a county larger than Surrey, or Leicester, or Nottingham, or
Hereford, or Cambridge, and nearly as large as Warwick. To feed the
annually increased population, supposing it to consume the same
proportions of meat that is consumed by the population of Manchester
and its vicinity, (a consumption which appears to me to be below the
average of the consumption in the metropolis,) the influx of 230,000
of new population will require for their consumption an annual
increase of 27,327 head of cattle, 70,319 sheep, 64,715 lambs, and
7894 calves, to raise which an annual increase of upwards of 81,000
acres of good pasture land would be required. Taking the consumption
of wheat or bread to be on the scale of a common dietary, _i. e._, 56
oz. daily for a family of a man, woman, and three children, then the
annual addition of supply of wheat required will be about 105,000
quarters, requiring 28,058 acres of land, yielding 30 bushels of wheat
to an acre; the total amount of good land requisite for raising the
chief articles of food will therefore be in all about 109,000 acres of
good pasture land annually. If the increase of production obtained by
the use of the refuse of Edinburgh (that is, of 3900 oxen from one
quarter of the refuse of Edinburgh) be taken as the scale of
production obtainable by appropriate measures, the refuse of the
metropolis alone that is now thrown away would serve to feed no less
than 218,288 oxen annually, which would be equivalent to the produce
of double that number of acres of good pasture land.
Footnote 45:
Vide Report.
Footnote 46:
By the statute of 1 and 2 Wm. IV. c. 57, power was given to
undertakers to contract for the improvement of land in Ireland, on
condition that they should receive a profit which was in no case to
exceed 15_l._ per cent. on the outlay. The undertakers, on the consent
of two-thirds of the proprietors or of the lessees, were to apply to
the Lord-lieutenant for a commission. Individual proprietors or
lessees, not exceeding six in number, upon receiving the assent of
two-thirds of the proprietors or lessees, might also apply for a
commission. To the reason above assigned for the failure, these must
be added—that the machinery of the Act is considered complicated; that
it nevertheless contained no provisions for ascertaining boundaries,
without which in Ireland it would be unsafe to raise any annuity upon
the lands; that the mode of repayment, _i. e._, that if the landlords
did not within a certain time pay the gross sum assessed, the
undertakers were entitled to a redeemable annuity upon the lands
drained; but there was no provision to compel the landowners to pay
the gross sum, and the annuities might be small and numerous.
Footnote 47:
Except in endeavouring to give more emphatic recommendations as to the
importance of making all the paid officers really responsible, I
should not vary the representation I had then the honour to make in
respect to the means of giving efficiency to local administration.
“With respect to the allusion of Mr. Earle, as to the cry of
centralization, I conceive that it is a cry to which the few who use
it can attach no definite ideas, and it has certainly had little
influence except with the most ignorant. The phrase has been used
abroad against the destruction of the authority of local
administrative bodies, and the substitution of an inefficient and
_irresponsible_ agency by the general government. But even abroad, all
those who call themselves the friends of popular liberty do not
declaim against centralization, but against _irresponsibility_. Here
the phrase is used against a measure by which strong local
administrative bodies of representatives have been created over the
greater part of the country, where nothing deserving the name of
systematised local administration has heretofore existed. The central
board may be described as an agency necessary for consolidating and
preserving the local administration, by communicating to each board
the principles deducible from the experience of the whole; and, in
cases such as those in which its intervention is now actually sought,
acting so as to protect the administration being torn by disputes
between members of the same local board; between a part or a minority
of the inhabitants and the board, and between one local board and
another, and in numerous other cases affording an appeal to a distant
and locally disinterested, yet highly responsible authority, which may
interpose to prevent the local administrative functions being torn or
injured by local dissentions. I feel confident that the more the
subject is examined, the more clearly it will be perceived that the
great security for the purity and improvement of local administration
must depend on a central agency.”
Footnote 48:
The parish doctors in England were often paid only 20_l._ per annum
for attendance in parishes of considerable extent. The payments to
medical officers who have their private practice are generally
quadrupled, as compared with the parish doctors. The medical
arrangements in Glasgow will illustrate the frequent state of the
existing arrangements in Scotland. The burgh of Glasgow, exclusive of
the suburbs, is divided into 12 districts, to each of which a medical
practitioner is appointed, who is paid for his services out of the
poor’s rates. Dr. Cowan stated of them in his report,—“The duties of
the district surgeons are laborious and dangerous. Nearly all of them
take fever, which involves a heavy pecuniary loss. Their salary is
less than 21_l._ per annum, being less than 1_s._ for the treatment of
each case.” For an equivalent district in population under the New
Poor Law in England, namely, in Lambeth, there are four out-door
medical officers, at salaries of 107_l._ each, and two in-door medical
officers, at salaries of 128_l._ each. They have in addition their
private practice and fees for vaccination, and special cases. The
usual rate of medical allowance to the resident medical officers of
dispensaries, who are excluded from private practice, has been from
60_l._ to 70_l._ per annum.
Footnote 49:
After the great fire of London, had the plan of Sir Christopher Wren
been adopted for the reconstruction of the City, that circumstance
would have saved the great expenses which have lately been incurred in
rendering the communications commodious; but no price could now
achieve the conveniences and facilities which his plan would have
conferred on the inhabitants during the long interval.
Footnote 50:
The Nungate is situated along the edge of the mill-pool.
Footnote 51:
In dry weather the abrasion of the stones is much less.
Footnote 52:
Scotland Yard, Finsbury Circus, and the north side of St. Paul’s
Churchyard afford partial illustrations of this arrangement.
Footnote 53:
General Average.
Footnote 54:
Mr. Terry, who is a very extensive farmer in Cookham, and was present
during this inquiry, explained this, and, in corroboration of Mr.
Whateley’s evidence on this point, stated that he, as a farmer, could
not make any profit by growing pigs beyond a certain size. The only
advantage which he had from keeping them was in using them to collect
the refuse corn, which would otherwise be trodden under foot at the
barn-door and rendered unmarketable; the office of the pig was to
gather up this refuse, and convert it into a marketable commodity,
pork. To fat the pigs beyond a certain size required more than the
refuse of the farm-yard; and, therefore, would not pay the farmer. It
was therefore, the practice of the farmers to sell the pigs to the
millers, who were enabled to fat them on another description of
refuse. Now if the labouring man kept a pig, as he had no farm-yard,
and no refuse to feed it with, he must either buy the food or steal
it. If he were honest and bought the food, his pork would, as Mr.
Whateley has stated, cost much more than he could buy it for. A pig
could only be kept on the produce of such a piece of land as a
labourer could not well cultivate whilst he attended to his other
duties. In this state of things, the temptation to pilfer for the
support of the pig was considerable. Other witnesses incidentally
corroborated this statement, and I found that with many farmers the
circumstance of a labouring man having a pig was an objection to
giving him employment. The Rev. Mr. Faithful, of Hatfield, Herts,
stated, as the result of his observation, that the keeping of pigs was
decidedly not profitable to cottagers; and such was the temptation to
steal which their possession of pigs created, that he had known a
labourer, who had a pig given to him, to steal from the donor the wood
to make its sty, the straw to litter it, and the food to feed it. The
farmers ridiculed the prevalent statements as to the small cost at
which pigs could be kept,—statements commonly made to the gentry by
roguish rustics, who profited by these delusions; a pig was not
accommodating enough to fatten on less for the cottager than for the
farmer.
A friend, who writes from Wiltshire, observes,—“I cannot make out who
it is that does fatten pigs to a profit. I asked a brewer the other
day if, with his grains, he did not make it answer; and he told me
that, on the contrary, he was always out of pocket, and only kept a
pig for the pleasure of eating his own pork. ‘Private individuals,’ he
added, ‘feed their pigs with what should rather be called spoilt malt
than grains. I cannot afford to do that; I must get out all the
goodness for my beer, and then there is not sufficient nutriment left
to fatten without the addition of things which I must purchase.’ It is
not unlikely that many persons, who fancied they kept pigs to a
profit, have fed them on this ‘spoilt malt,’ in ignorance that they
were, in fact, giving their swine valuable beer instead of refuse
grains.”
A gentleman, speaking of such appendages to labourers’ tenements in a
manufacturing district, states,—“Formerly most of our houses had them,
but they are terrible things for getting out of repair, and we are
pulling them down a good deal, and clearing the ground; for I know,
from intelligent, clear-headed workmen, that the manufacturing
families cannot grow their pork nearly so cheap as they can buy it.
The trade in bacon is quite different to what it was 20 or 30 years
ago. Now it is a great business, and the quantity of the improved
Irish pigs brought even into smallish cottages is very large. In such
villages where yard-room is not very large, swill and manure make a
terrible stink. Only such of our people keep pigs as have a fondness
for it, and as a sort of hobby, but believing that it does not pay.”
Footnote 55:
The plan of Gourlier was simply to divide the receptacle into two
parts, an upper compartment and a lower. The contents of the
water-closet were discharged into the upper portion, and the water
drained into the lower, through holes pierced in the partition. In the
barrack plan there was no division in the receptacle, but, instead, a
leaden pipe pierced with holes was carried perpendicularly through the
midst of it, into which the water filtered from the receptacle, and
was conducted anywhere at pleasure. Neither of these systems obviated
two principal evils—the necessity to empty the receptacles, and the
stagnation of the water, from the night-soil, round the foundations of
the houses, from whence it worked its way up into the walls. The
annoyance always felt from the removal of night-soil in Paris, and the
ineffectual efforts of scientific men, for a long course of years, to
discover a remedy, is a sufficient proof of the imperfection of all
other methods except sewers. There has never indeed been a question
that this last system was incomparably the best. But it has not
occurred to men of science at Paris, that there could be any other
outlet for the sewers besides the Seine, and the popular apprehension
that the water would by this means be polluted, combined with the
unwillingness to sacrifice the manure, have been always viewed as
fatal objections.—_Translator._
Footnote 56:
The disinfection is produced by mixing the night-soil with calcined
mud, or burned turf, or saw-dust, or refuse tan, and various other
substances. A commission of the Conseil de Salubrité found that a
large barrel of fecal matter was deprived of all smell in five minutes
by this process; and even putrefied entrails, the severest test by
which it could be tried, yielded equally to its influence. The
commission, however, doubted the success of the application where the
water was in large proportions.—_Translator._
Footnote 57:
Classes Dangereuses, tom. ii., p. 126.
Footnote 58:
Parent Duchâtelet, de la Prostitution, tom. i. p. 504.
Footnote 59:
Classes Dangereuses, tom. i., p. 135.
Footnote 60:
Even in case of the existence of water companies for the supply of
towns, there should still be public springs or wells, which would
furnish at least the absolutely necessary quantity of water, free of
_all_ expense. In this case, any one who wished to have greater
abundance, or wished the water to be introduced into his house, might
have it by paying for it.
Footnote 61:
The instances of towns having gained very essentially by drainage are
Stuttgard, which has, in consequence, entirely lost a peculiar endemic
fever; and Pavia which, by the filling up of the city ditches, has had
its average duration of life much raised.
Footnote 62: