in the educated classes, has worked out the extraordinary result that, the
higher the step in the social hierarchy, the greater the means of
self-indulgence, the less the chance of long life. People have so long
been accustomed to look upon the possession of wealth as the best
guarantee for a flourishing bodily condition, that they will be surprised,
perhaps, to hear that in proportion as the wholesome stimulus of labour is
withdrawn from any class, in the same proportion the value of its average
term of life is shortened. And yet our common experience but tallies with
the results of scientific inquiry in this matter. When a man who has lived
a long and active life, suddenly retires with the idea that he has earned
his ease, and that it is time for him to enjoy himself, ten to one but he
has taken the most effectual method of shortening his life; and much as we
may smile at the taste of the retired soap-boiler, who always made a
point of going down to his old shop on "boiling days," yet we can see that
his instinct directed him rightly, for we can none of us bear idleness,
least of all those who have long practised industry.
Regularity, sobriety, and activity of mind and body, are the pabulum on
which vital force is fed; while, on the contrary, luxury, licentiousness,
and sloth, are the cankers of life. A comparison of the longevity of the
different educated classes proves this in a remarkable manner. Let us
take, for instance, the three learned professions. If the reader were
asked whether the clergyman, the lawyer, or the physician lived longest,
most probably he would say the lawyer. Accustomed to venerable age on the
judgment-seat, and struck with the fact that our leading law lords have
generally been, and still are, noblemen of very advanced age, he would
perhaps be justified in giving the palm of longevity to them. Yet, in
truth, as a class, they are the shortest-lived. The race is neck and neck,
it is true, but they lose by a neck. The clergyman, as we should naturally
suppose, enjoys a higher standard of health, and attains a greater age,
than any member of the community, excepting poor Hodge, the humblest
member of his flock. His average age, taking those persons only into
account who have passed their 50th year, is 74·04 years, or rather better
than one year longer than the physician, who lives to an average age of
72·95 years. This trifling difference, we should expect, as the latter is
subject to many chances of infection, and lives more a town life than the
former. If the comparison is made, however, between the highest grades of
the two professions, between archbishops and bishops, and baronets who
have filled the posts of physicians and surgeons to the sovereign, the
latter have the advantage by four years, and in both cases the lawyer lags
behind in the race with clergymen and physicians: with the latter in his
ordinary rank by a few days only, and with the class of medical baronets,
as compared with judges, upwards of four years, how much hard study,
alternated with tawny port, has to do with the difference, we should
scarcely like to say. The gentry may be reckoned to be about as
long-lived as the clergy; well-housed, well-fed, and living an
agricultural life with active habits, they have few diseases, and are
especially exempt from consumption. Officers of the navy have slightly the
advantage of those of the army--say one year of life. From this point,
where the social hierarchy takes a leap, and clothes itself in the purple
and fine linen of nobility, the lamp of life begins rapidly to burn low.
The aristocracy of this country are shorter-lived, by more than one year,
than he who works with all the cares and anxieties of the priest, the
lawyer, or the physician; and members of royal houses (calculated from the
ages of members of continental as well as English royalty) descend the
ladder of life so rapidly, that they have three years less of existence
than the peer; and, lastly, we come to the "round and top of sovereignty
itself." The potentate who stands on the highest pinnacle of human
greatness, surrounded, it would seem, with every condition favourable to
comfort and longevity, fenced about from casualties which constantly beset
the paths of ordinary mortals--his would appear indeed a charmed life; yet
the hard fact will stare us in the face, that the sands of life run far
quicker with him than with any other of the educated classes. His years
are on an average but 64, or 10 less than the clergy, who probably have to
fight the hardest battle in the world--the fight of comparative poverty
against appearances. It could be "clearly shown," says Mr. Neison, in his
"Vital Statistics," "by tracing the various classes of society in which
there exists sufficient means of subsistence, by beginning with the most
humble, and passing on to the middle and upper classes, that a gradual
deterioration in the duration of life takes place; and that just as life,
with all its wealth, pomp, and magnificence, would seem to become more
valuable and tempting, so are its opportunities and chances of enjoyment
lessened. As far as the results of figures admit of judging, this
condition would seem to flow directly from the luxurious and pampered
style of living among the wealthier classes, whose artificial habits
interfere with the nature and degree of those physical exercises which, in
a simpler class of society, are accompanied with long life." Truly, there
is a spirit of compensation in this life, if we could only "distil it
forth." The poor countryman of thirty years of age, who takes his frugal
repast under a hedge, has a chance of thirteen years' longer life than the
monarch of the same age clothed in purple, and lord, perhaps, of half the
habitable world!
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This _cophee-house_ in Sweeting's Rents is not alluded to by Mr.
Cunningham in his Handbook of London. He mentions the first as established
in 1657, in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill, and the second (no date
mentioned) as set up at the Rainbow in Fleet Street. We think we must make
way for this new discovery between the two.
[2] A furniture broker made his fortune by an advertisement headed "Advice
to Persons about to Marry." Our witty friend _Punch_ followed up this
prelude with the single word _Don't_, as the substitute for the lists of
four-posted beds.
[3] In an article upon the teas of commerce, which appeared in the
_Quarterly Journal of the Chemical Society_ for July, 1851.
[4] Assam tea is the only exception to this rule, but very little of it is
imported.
[5] That sold by Messrs. Dakin, of St. Paul's Churchyard.
[6] It will be scarcely necessary to say that the great London brewers
have never laid themselves open to the suspicion of having adulterated
their liquor.
[7] An act has lately been passed which will, we trust, check in some
degree the grosser food-frauds on the public.
[8] Since gone to make bears' grease.
[9] The great merit of this inference may be judged from the circumstance
that several eminent naturalists, out of an honest regard for the
reputation of Professor Owen, endeavoured to prevent the publication of
the paper in which, with the sure sagacity of scientific genius, he
confidently announced the fact.
[10] The history of the migrations of the rat is involved in doubt, and
none of the accounts can be relied on. Goldsmith had been assured that the
Norway rat, as it is called, though it was quite unknown in that country
when it established itself in England, came to us from the coast of
Ireland, whither it had been carried in the ships that traded in
provisions to Gibraltar.
[11] When the atmospheric railway to Epsom was at work, the rats came for
the grease which was used to make the endless leather valve, which ran on
the top of the suction-pipe, air-tight. Some of them entered the tube,
from which they were sucked with every passing train; nevertheless, day by
day, others were immolated in the same manner.
[12] A native in India, observing one day a rat run across the floor,
stooped to look after it. While in this position he suddenly felt
something tugging him back by his hair, and on putting up his hand found a
large cobra struggling to free his teeth from his locks. The reptile had
also observed the rat, and had dropped from the roof, when the peon
suddenly interposed his person between the hunter and his prey. The snake
and the rat escaped; but the magistrate of the district having ordered the
house to be pulled down the next day, the cobra was found with the rat
half digested in his stomach.
[13] A single dead rat beneath a floor will render a room uninhabitable. A
financier, of European celebrity, found his drawing-room intolerable. He
supposed that the drains were out of order, and went to a great expense to
remedy the evil. The annoyance continued, and a ratcatcher guessed the
cause of the mischief. On pulling up the boards, a dead rat was discovered
near the bell-wire. The bell had been rung as he was passing, and the
crank had caught and strangled him.
[14] In a comfortable little apartment, which looked quite domestic in
comparison with the workhouse wards of ordinary lunatic asylums, we saw,
on our last visit, a young musician playing on a violoncello to an
admiring audience. Touches of similar enjoyment continually meet the
visitor, lighting up the moral atmosphere of the building with a
cheerfulness totally at variance with his preconceived notions of this
notorious madhouse.
[15] Steps are being taken, we believe, to effect this necessary change;
but unless Parliament puts its pressure upon the Home-Office, we shall
expect to see the arrangement completed when the Nelson Column is
finished, and not before.
[16] The walls of one of the wards of Colney Hatch are decorated
throughout with well-executed bas-relief pictures from Greek subjects by a
patient. We are informed that the lunatics who are transferred here from
the undecorated wards, enter the apartment with expressions of delight,
and are particularly careful to preserve the objects of their pleasure in
good condition. In some metropolitan asylums the inmates have adorned
their prison-house with pieces of sculpture and pictures; and the Germans
are fond of indulging the love of colour by filling some of the windows
with stained glass. In France, abundance of flowers are placed about the
establishment, as being eminent sources of delight. In these particulars
we have not a little to learn from our continental brethren.
[17] These particulars respecting the pauper lunatic colony of Gheel are
taken from an article by Dr. Webster in Dr. Winslow's _Journal of
Psychological Medicine_. This review, which originated with and from the
first has been under the able editorship of Dr. Forbes Winslow, has given
an immense impulse to the study of psychology. It has enlarged the views
of the physician of the insane, and, by extending his horizon, has given
him a far better knowledge of the special department to which he formerly
confined his studies. It is as impossible to understand the workings of a
morbid mind without possessing a knowledge of its ordinary action as it is
to interpret the sounds of a diseased lung without being first acquainted
with those of a healthy one. The great service which Dr. Forbes Winslow
has rendered by unravelling the phenomena of mind in its normal as well as
in its disordered state, entitles him to a very high meed of praise, and
has deservedly ranked him among the first medico-psychologists of the
present day.
[18] In the subjoined passage, which is extracted from an official
communication to the Commissioners in Lunacy, and published in one of
their parliamentary reports, Dr. Forbes Winslow explains the principles
which should guide the physician in the moral treatment of the insane when
placed under legal control and supervision:--"In the management of the
insane, and in the conduct of asylums, both public and private, the
principle of treatment should consist in a full and liberal recognition of
the importance of extending to the insane the _maximum_ amount of liberty
and indulgence compatible with their safety, security, and recovery; at
the same time, subjecting them to the _minimum_ degree of mechanical and
moral restraint, isolation, seclusion, and surveillance, consistent with
their actual morbid state of mind at the time. It is also necessary to
bear in mind as an essential principle of curative treatment, the
importance of bringing the insane confined in asylums, as much as
possible, within the sphere of social, kindly, and domestic influences. In
many cases, isolation, seclusion, and an absolute immunity from all kinds
of stimuli, physical and mental, are, during the acute and recent stages
of insanity, indispensably necessary to recovery; but in certain forms of
melancholia, monomania, and in some chronic morbid states of mind, no mode
of moral treatment is productive of such great curative results as that
now referred to. I need not observe that this system of treatment cannot
be adopted except in those establishments where there is an active,
experienced, and intelligent resident medical officer, who fully
appreciates the great value of such homely family influences upon the
minds of the insane. In our moral treatment, do we not occasionally
exhibit an excess of caution, and exercise, with the best and kindest
intentions, an undue amount of moral restraint and vigilance? I think we
may sometimes err in being a little too distrustful of the insane. Whilst
urging the necessity, in certain forms of morbid mind, of great and
constant watchfulness, particularly in cases of suicidal monomania, and
recent and acute attacks, I would suggest, to those having the management
of asylums, the necessity, with the view to the adoption of a curative
process of treatment, of placing more confidence in those entrusted to
their care, and of allowing the patients a greater amount of freedom,
indulgence, and liberty than they at present enjoy in many of our public
and private asylums. In many phases of insanity in which confinement is
indispensable, the patient's word may fully be relied upon; and under
certain well-defined restrictions, he should be permitted to feel that
confidence is reposed in him, and that he is trusted, and not altogether
(although in confinement) deprived of his free and independent agency. I
feel quite assured that a judicious liberality of this kind will be
generally followed by the happiest curative results, and greatly conduce
to the comfort and happiness of the patient. Patients should be permitted
occasionally to attend divine worship out of the asylum, when
circumstances do not contra-indicate this practice; they should be allowed
also to walk out of the confines of the asylum, to attend places of
amusement, visit scientific exhibitions; and the resident medical officer
should make himself their friend and companion; thus inspiring them with
confidence in his skill and kindly intentions, and reconciling them to the
degree of moral restraint to which they may be unavoidably subjected."
[19] In Belgium, where many of the pauper lunatics are located in
religious houses and are attended upon by the frères and soeurs of these
establishments, it is not uncommon to find the patients at certain times
of the day totally deserted and left to their own devices--the attendants
being engaged in their religious duties!
[20] It may be as well to state that the Poor-Law Commissioners also
worked out the problem with very similar conclusions in 1851, and that the
investigations made by the Swedish Government into the condition of the
insane in Norway in 1835 further corroborate the statement that insanity
prevails to a greater extent in rural than in urban districts.
[21] If the spectator, while leaning over the rail of the wharf and
watching "Oyster Street," as the costermongers call the line of
oyster-boats moored side by side, has ever been at a loss to understand
why it is that in the very height of the market, when the decks are
crowded with purchasers, the sailors are seen hanging about the boats, or
seated upon the bulwarks, taking their morning pipes, whilst the duty of
measuring and carrying the oysters is being performed by the "Fellowships"
belonging to the corporation of London, he will now know the reason. Steam
will, however, surely abolish many of these city abuses, and rail-borne
oysters will lend their powerful aid to rail-borne coal in abolishing
regulations which are not in accordance with the emancipated spirit of the
age.
[22] Since this was written, the new market in Copenhagen Fields has been
opened, and a totally different state of things now obtained.
[23] This return contains some small proportion of game, the quantity of
which is not stated.
[24] There is, we confess, some little discrepancy between this estimate
of the country-killed meat at Newgate, and the known quantity brought in
by railway, as most assuredly 161,200 oxen, 509,600 sheep, and 62,400
calves and pigs, far outweigh the 36,487 tons of meat brought by the
different lines, even "sinking" the offal. But so assured is Mr. Giblett,
and the Smithfield Commissioners with him, that he is under the mark, that
we give credit to his estimate, and take it for granted that much
country-killed meat must come to market by other conveyance than the
railway.
[25] Since the above was written, these fine buildings have been taken
possession of by Sir William Armstrong, where, under the veil of secrecy,
his extraordinary ordnance is now constructed to the entire exclusion of
the old style of cannon.
[26] The French manufacturer who executed the order addressed a letter to
one of the Emperor's chamberlains, from which we take the following
extract:--"It is, I believe, the first time that England, who was hitherto
regarded as able to supply the most unforeseen wants of her army, should
find herself obliged to have recourse to French industry. I had it too
much at heart to sustain the reputation of my country in the eyes of our
rivals to leave anything undone towards the execution of an order which
was intrusted to me, and I have had the satisfaction of receiving from the
English Government the most flattering compliments. With a view to
perpetuate the memory of that operation, which is almost an event in
industry, I have ordered a medal to be engraved by M. Louis Merley, who
gained the great prize at Rome, and who is one of the artists of whom
France is proud. I desire earnestly to obtain the favour of presenting
this medal to his Majesty the Emperor, as also the model of the rifles
fabricated for England; and I pray your Excellency to be good enough to
solicit for me an audience of his Majesty." The audience was granted, and
the medal and the model of the fire-arm presented in due form.
[27] The merchants are provided annually with a sample of Waltham Abbey
powder to guide them in their manufacture.
[28] We may more truly liken the system to the warming apparatus of a
hot-house. The hot waters of the Gulf, conducted across the Atlantic, are
the forcing power which stimulates the vegetation of Cornwall, whence the
London market is supplied with its early vegetables.
[29] The effect of this Act, which passed in 1839, was most marked. In the
three years previous, the average annual loss of timber ships was 56-1/2,
and the loss of life 300. In the three years subsequent to its coming into
operation the loss of ships fell to 23-1/2, and the loss of life to 106.
[30] Whilst the civil workman is called in to do the work of the soldier
at home, strangely enough we send out the soldier to do the work of the
emigrant abroad. A force of Royal Engineers some time since left these
shores for the purpose of discharging this office in British Columbia.
[31] Mr. Jeffreys informs us that he saw during the mutiny a recruiting
sergeant's placard in which there was an engraving of a British trooper
cutting down a Sepoy and taking from him a bag of treasure.
[32] This idea of a sanitary officer for armies in the field originated
with Mr. J. Ranald Martin, who has long advocated the measure in his
correspondence with the medical journals, and with the East India
Government. To this gentleman we also owe the suggestion of a health
officer in civil life.
[33] Code of letter signals in the needle telegraph commonly used in
England. Two needles are generally employed, in order to facilitate the
transmission of signals:--
Let _a_ denote a deflection of the _left-hand needle to the left_, _a´ to
the right_; _b_ a deflection of the _right-hand needle to the left_, _b´
to the right_. Then here is the code:
+ _a_
A _a a_
B _a a a_
C _a´ a_
D _a a´_
E _a´_
F _a´ a´_
G _a´ a´ a´_
H _b_
I _b b_
K _b b b_
L _b´ b_
M _b b´_
N _b´_
O _b´ b´_
P _b´ b´ b´_
R _a b_
S _a a b b_
T _a a a b b b_
U _a´ a b´ b_
W _a´ b´_
X _a´ a´ b´ b´_
Y _a´ a´ a´ b´ b´ b´_
Thus F is indicated by two successive deflections of the left-hand needle
to the right; R by a simultaneous deflection of both needles to the left.
Where both needles are required they may be and are deflected
simultaneously; where one only is used its deflections must of necessity
be successive. The sign + means "I do not understand;" the letter E "I do
understand."
[34] It may interest our readers to reproduce the first published notice
we can find of Professor Wheatstone's experiments relating to the electric
telegraph, and which appeared anterior to his connection with Mr.
Cooke:--"During the month of June last year (1836), in a course of
lectures delivered at King's College, London, Professor Wheatstone
repeated his experiments on the velocity of electricity which were
published in the _Philosophical Transactions_ for 1834, but with an
insulated circuit of copper wire, the length of which was now increased to
nearly four miles; the thickness of the wire was 1-16th of an inch. When
machine electricity was employed, an electrometer placed on any point of
the circuit diverged, and, wherever the continuity of the circuit was
broken, bright sparks were visible. With a voltaic battery, or with a
magneto-electric machine, water was decomposed, the needle of the
galvanometer was deflected, &c., in the middle of the circuit. But, which
has a more direct reference to the subject of our esteemed correspondent's
communication from Munich, Professor Wheatstone gave a sketch of the means
by which he proposes to convert his apparatus into an electrical
telegraph, which, by the aid of a few finger stops, will instantaneously,
and distinctly, convey communications between the most distant points.
These experiments are, we understand, still in progress, and the
apparatus, as it is at present constructed, is capable of conveying thirty
simple signals, which, combined in various manners, will be fully
sufficient for the purposes of telegraphic communication."--From the
_Magazine of Popular Science_ (Parker, Strand) for March 1, 1837.
[35]
_a_ -
_b_ - ---- -
_c_ ---- - -
_d_ - - - ----
_e_ - -
_f_ ---- ----
_g_ - ---- - -
_h_ ---- ---- ----
_i_ - - -
_j_ - - ---- - -
_k_ - ---- ---- -
_l_ - ----
_m_ - ---- - ----
_n_ - ---- ----
_o_ - - - -
_p_ - - ---- -
_q_ ---- - ---- -
_r_ ----
_s_ ---- -
_t_ - - ----
_u_ - - - - -
_v_ ---- ---- -
_w_ ---- ---- - -
_x_ ---- - - ----
_y_ ---- - ----
_z_ ---- - - -
[36] In justice to the Company, which is very properly jealous of the
particulars of its messages transpiring, we beg to state that we acquired
the above fact from a person totally disconnected with the Electric
Telegraph Office.
[37] Mr. Reuter now performs this duty both for home and foreign news.
[38] The use of the metal or earth-plate will be understood from the
following statement of Steinheil:--"Owing to the low conducting power of
water or the ground, compared with metals, it is necessary that at the two
places where the metal conductor is in connection with the soil, the
former should present very large surfaces of contact. Assuming that water
conducts two million times worse than copper, a surface of water
proportional to this must be brought into contact with the water. If the
section of a copper wire is 0·5 of a square line, it will require a copper
plate of 61 square feet surface in order to conduct the galvanic current
through the ground, as the wire in question would conduct it."