Part 36
“There is no reason to doubt that instead of every second man perishing miserably within a few weeks, the rate of mortality might have been as low as that exhibited in the South American Report, viz., one death annually by disease out of 150 men. Now there was nothing new nor mysterious in the pestilence either as to its origin or its essence: it was not a sudden climatorial influence which could not be resisted nor understood; it was a well-known affection presenting all the signs of utter prostration and pointing to pure debility as its source, the effects principally of scanty, unwholesome, unvarying diet and bad water—partly of inadequate attention to cleanliness, order, and ventilation, and the nearly total neglect of systematic attention to measures for amusing, cheering, and improving the mind with which resulting despondency often cooperated. The remedy therefore would appear to have been self-evident and at hand, not to the commanders of ships and fleets, but to the administration. Information on many points in the animal economy was certainly less exact than it is now, and vague unfounded notions prevailed of necessary relations existing between a sea-life and scurvy. Hence it may be concluded that ignorance rather than inhumanity was the reason why effectual measures were not long before adopted for the prevention of such terrible calamities.”
He observes further that—
In 1779 the proportion dying was 1 in 8 of the employed.
In 1811 the proportion dying was 1 in 32 of the employed.
From 1830 to 1836 the average number dying annually was 1 in 72 of the employed.
But—
“In this calculation, the deaths from all sources are included from wounds, drowning, and all other external causes as well as from disease. From the latter source the deaths were in the proportion of 1 to 85 of the number employed annually. When it is considered that the ratio applies to the whole service, and therefore includes the most unhealthy sections, the Coast of Africa and the West Indies, it will be admitted, even without reference to former periods, to be very low.”[34]
The scurvy, once so fatal in the navy, is now almost unknown in men-of-war, whilst it still prevails often to a most serious extent in the mercantile navy where the same care is not taken. It was a popular opinion in the navy, that the use of lemon juice in the grog was a specific against scurvy; but it is stated that the health of seamen has in some instances been advanced by the discontinuance of the grog itself, and the substitution of coffee. _Dr. Nisbett_ says, “I may state generally, that this substance (lemon juice) in the quantities usually issued (one ounce per diem) does not prevent the appearance of scurvy under circumstances favourable to its production; that in increased quantities it appears to have some power of arresting, at least for a time, this disease in its earlier stages, and is thus of great value; but that it is not to be considered an antidote, and that the only cure for this disease is a full diet of fresh meat and vegetables;” the preventives being, general and personal cleanliness, ventilation, and liberal supplies of good water, in addition to supplies of wholesome food.
The mortality of the home force ships employed chiefly in harbour duty, &c. (where of course they were not cut off from communication or means of infection from the shore,) in Great Britain and Ireland, gives the rate of mortality obtainable by sanitary means, even now confessedly imperfect especially in ventilation, amongst a male population ranging from 15 to 50 years of age, and may be taken as illustrative of the amount of health attainable on shore.
In 1830 the deaths in the navy from disease independently of external causes were—
Disease, per 1000. All Causes, per 1000. 1830 6·0 8·7 1831 11·5 3·4 1832 11·9 14·0 1833 6·3 7·9 1834 4·9 6·7 1835 5·9 7·2 1836 7·5 9·5
Mr. Finlaison has lately calculated that the deaths _on shore_ out of 1000 of the population of 29 years of age may be estimated at about 12 per annum. Mr. Rickman calculated that the deaths at that age in Essex and Rutland would be about 12½ persons per 1000 per annum: for the metropolis it would be about 15½ deaths. Out of 1000 workmen in the Government dock-yards, the number of deaths were 15; and hitherto in the metropolitan police force, which is more select than the navy, the number of deaths appear to be about 9 per annum; but about the same number of men is annually invalided from the force. The proportion of deaths amongst the troops appears to be, amongst the household cavalry, 14·5, amongst the dragoons 15·3, amongst the infantry in depôt, 18·5, and amongst the foot guards 21·6. Since the Guards have been in Canada the rate of mortality has been reduced to that of other regiments.
The health of the foot guards is believed to be affected by peculiar circumstances.
I may add, as respects soldiers, that by proper care such epidemics as typhus, scarlet fever, are now scarcely known as affecting large groups in the army, and that such an occurrence would denote to the chiefs of the army medical board the existence of some great neglect into which it would be necessary to make inquiry.
_Cost to tenants and owners of the public measures for drainage, cleansing, and the supplies of water, as compared with the cost of sickness._
Persons well acquainted with the inferior descriptions of tenements in Manchester state that a large proportion of them change owners in ten years, and that few remain in the same hands more than twenty years; and it is observed in other populous districts that this description of property most frequently changes hands. The chief obstacle to the execution of legislative measures for public improvements of tenements of the class in question in such districts has been, that large immediate outlays of capital have been required to be made in an inconvenient manner for permanent improvements, by persons possessing only short or transient interests, to whom no means are given for spreading the charge over longer periods of years to make it coincident with the benefits.
In reference to the structural arrangements which come within the public authority, the majority of professional persons the best acquainted with the description of tenements occupied by the poorer classes, and the importance of getting the work done, agree that it would, on the whole, be the most advantageous course to execute them, by loans paying interest on the security of the rates, and spread the charge over 30 years during which the original outlay should be repaid. This would allow of the annual instalment being charged in fair proportions to the tenant, and to the holders of short interests.
The outlay for the execution of measures which come within the public authority are those, 1, for bringing water on the premises; 2, for applying it to remove refuse by a cheap apparatus; 3, a drain for conveyance of the refuse to the (4) main drains or common sewer.
In the rural districts all these purposes of cleansing may, it is considered, be accomplished by means of a proper use of the rain-water; and that which is here given may be considered as a maximum estimate for _towns_, if the work be properly done by public contract on a large scale.
┌───────────────────────────┬──────────┬────────────┬──────────┐ │ │ │ │ Weekly │ │ │ │ │Charge to │ │ │ │ │ the │ │ │ │ Annual │Tenant, or│ │ │ Annual │ interest, │increased │ │ │Instalment│commuted at │ Rent, │ │First Outlay per Tenement. │ for │5 per cent. │being the │ │ │Repayment │ on Outlay │ 1/54th │ │ │in Thirty │ charged as │ part of │ │ │ Years. │ Rent on │the sum of│ │ │ │ Tenant. │the annual│ │ │ │ │instalment│ │ │ │ │and annual│ │ │ │ │interest. │ ├──────────────┬────────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤ │ │£. _s._ _d._│_s._ _d._│£. _s._ _d._│ _d._ │ │Water-tank[35]│ │ │ │ │ │ and │10 8 6│ 6 11│ 0 6 8│ 3 │ │ apparatus │ │ │ │ │ │Sewer │ 5 12 0│ 3 9│ 0 3 6│ 1½ │ │Water │ │ │ 0 5 0│ 1 │ ├──────────────┴────────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤ │ Total │ 10 8│ 0 15 2│ 5½ │ └───────────────────────────┴──────────┴────────────┴──────────┘
┌───────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────┐ │ │ Total Outlay on One-third │ │First Outlay per Tenement. │ (1,148,282 inhabited houses) │ │ │ of the existing Tenements in │ │ │ England, Wales and Scotland. │ ├───────────────────────────┼──────────┬──────────┬────────┤ │ │ │ │ Annual │ │ │ │ │Interest│ │ │ │ Annual │commuted│ │ │ │Instalment│at 5 per│ │ │ First │ for │cent. on│ │ │ Outlay. │Repayment │ Outlay │ │ │ │in Thirty │charged │ │ │ │ Years. │as Rent │ │ │ │ │ on │ │ │ │ │Tenant. │ ├──────────────┬────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────┤ │ │£. _s._ _d._│ £. │ £. │ £. │ │Water-tank[35]│ │ │ │ │ │ and │10 8 6│11,970,840│ 399,028│ 379,687│ │ apparatus │ │ │ │ │ │Sewer │ 5 12 0│ 6,430,379│ 214,346│ 203,957│ │Water │ │ │ │ │ ├──────────────┴────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────┤ │ Total │18,401,219│ 613,374│ 583,644│ └───────────────────────────┴──────────┴──────────┴────────┘
The above is a maximum estimate, and if the work be executed systematically by contract for districts, the charge may be so far reduced that it may be taken to include repairs, but if it were executed by each occupier or each owner separately, 15 per cent. must be added to the charge; and if, in addition to the separate charge incurred by neglect of legislative or administrative arrangements there be also incurred the ordinary fees of new surveyors of sewers, and new surveyors of buildings, paid by the ordinary fees, the charge for these structural improvements will be still further increased.
But the supplies of water for all the household purposes at the highest water company’s charges, which is 138 pailsful for less than 1¼_d._, is, in fact, to be considered a reduction of an existing expenditure of labour of fetching water.
The cost of cleansing privies is estimated as an existing charge in the metropolis and many towns of not less than 10_s._ per tenement annually. If the duty were duly performed the cost would perhaps be double that amount, and be equivalent to the whole of the proposed new expenditure; and taking the new expenditure as being less that charge, there only remains the cost of the new sewerage,—1½_d._ weekly, or 6_s._ 6_d._ annually. Supposing this charge of 1½_d._ weekly imposed upon the landlord, he will have to set against it the preservation of the tenement from dilapidation by drainage, which of itself would frequently repay the whole outlay. He has also the circumstance to consider that he may get better tenants by the improvement of his houses, and that with such tenants he will have more regular payments of rent. Protracted sickness and protracted losses of employment, and the frequent mortality caused by neglect of cleansing, occasion heavy losses to the owners, and occasion a greater diminution of the returns for such tenements than is commonly apparent.
One obstruction to any amendment by cleansing is occasioned by the circumstance that the laying on the water is considered a tenant’s charge, and the lower the class the more fluctuating the tenantry and the greater the reluctance of the tenant, and the less indeed are the means to make any immediate outlay for permanent purposes. To cast any immediate outlay on occupiers of this class, who have scarcely self-control to make reserves of the weekly rents, practically amounts to a prohibition of the work being done. That which will in extensive districts really be a new charge, _i. e._, sewerage, will fall only at the rate of the 1½_d._ per week per tenement, and as most tenements are now occupied in the more crowded districts, this will be a charge to be divided between two families. If it were properly distributed, it is an amount not to be spoken of as serious in the weekly charge.[36]
New charges, for improved house accommodation, as well as for sewerage and house cleansing, may all be submitted as means for the reduction of the existing heavy charges of sickness, and of the loss of work and loss of wages consequent upon sickness. To judge of the extent of the immediate charge of sickness in money and _time_, which is independent of the charge of insurance against premature death, we may select the case of an ordinary family, say of a man at 40, a wife at 30, and two children, who may be represented as equivalent to one child aged 15, the lowest age estimated in the insurance tables, which for an average family is an under estimate. Now to insure these a payment of 10_s._ per week each during sickness, the charges would be as follows, according to the insurance tables computed by Mr. Finlaison for the guidance of benefit societies.
┌───────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────┐ │ Age │ For an allowance of 10_s._ per │ │ │week, during sickness, according to│ │ │ the Table constructed by Mr. │ │ │ Finlaison, the Actuary of the │ │ │ National Debt Office. │ ├───────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┬─────────────────┤ │ │Monthly Payment. │ Single Payment. │ ├───────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┤ │ │ £. _s._ _d._│ £. _s._ _d._│ │Man, 40 │ 0 2 11│ 27 5 2│ │Woman, 30 │ 0 1 11½│ 21 0 6│ │Child, 15 │ 0 1 3¼│ 14 18 1│ ├───────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┤ │Total per family │ 0 6 1¾│ 63 3 9│ ├───────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┤ │Total annual charge │ 3 13 9│ │ ├───────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┤ │Total weekly charge per family │ 0 1 5│ │ └───────────────────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┘
In the course of the Factory Commission of Inquiry in 1834, we ascertained that the wages of upwards of 40,000 employed in the cotton mills, of whom two-thirds were below the adolescent stage, amounted, on the average, to 10_s._ 5_d._ per week. Up to the beginning of the present year the wages of those in work were not lower. Mr. Finlaison’s table, therefore, will best represent the existing pecuniary charge of sickness from the loss of wages to a family in such a district in ordinary seasons of employment. The actual charge of sickness in _time_ lost every year, as represented by the experience of the sickness tables before cited, would be as follows:—
┌─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┐ │ Age. │Experience of│Experience of│ Mr. │ Experience │ │ │the Wynds of │ Benefit │ Finlaison. │ under │ │ │ Edinburgh. │Societies in │ │ Sanitary │ │ │ │ Scotland. │ │ Measures. │ ├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤ │ │ Days, &c. │ Days, &c. │ Days, &c. │ Days, &c. │ │Man, 40 │ 15·1│ 6·9│ 9·2│ 2·75│ │Woman, 30 │ 11·0│ 4·2│ 6·33│ 2·10│ │Child, 15 │ 3·5│ 0·2│ 5·18│ 0·17│ ├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤ │Total per │ 29·6│ 11·3│ 20·71│ 5·02│ │ family │ │ │ │ │ └─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┘
The experience of the effect of sanitary measures proves the possibility of the reduction of sickness in the worst districts to at least one-third of the existing amount. Amidst classes somewhat better situated, it were possible to reduce the sickness to less than one-third; it were an under estimate to take the probable reduction at one-half. Taking it, however, at one-half, by the new payment of 1½_d._, or say 2_d._, weekly for drainage, the occupants of the tenements will save 7½_d._ of the weekly contribution for an allowance of 10_s._ per week each during sickness. But the allowance insured to be paid during sickness only replaces the earnings: the sickness, besides its own misery, entails the expense of medical attendance, which, at the usual rate of insurance in medical clubs, would be 5_s._ or 6_s._ per annum for such a family. This would also be reduced one-half, making the total family saving at the least 9_d._ weekly. But the single payment for structural alterations is to be regarded as general, and as a means of affecting the whole of the objects for the whole of the population. For this 2_d._ each tenement, or 1_d._ each family, then, they will not only save double the weekly amount, but they will save, in the wear and tear of shoes and clothes, from having a well-drained and well-cleansed instead of a wet and miry district to traverse; they will also save the sickness itself, and each individual will gain a proportionate extension of a more healthy life. In a district where the wages are not one-half the amount above stated, the expenditure for efficient means of prevention would still leave a surplus of gain to the labourer.
These are the chief gains on the side of the labourer; but in general every labourer over and above what he consumes himself, produces enough to repay the interest on capital and cost of superintendence or the profits of the employer. The loss of this extra production is the loss of the community during the whole time the services of the labourer are abridged by sickness or death. To this loss is to be added, where the labourer has made no reserve, the loss of the cost of his unproductive maintenance as a pauper, and of medical attendance during sickness.
The existing insurance charge, then, represents the existing charge on the labouring classes from the loss of wages consequent on sickness; to which charge might be added the existing additional charge denoted by the insurance on account of the abridged duration of life and more frequent deaths. The aggregate charge for structural improvements, though amounting to so many millions as a first outlay, is still, for the reasons above stated, only a means of obtaining an incalculably greater gain. But it will be shown that the attainment of that gain is dependent on securities for the application of science to the efficient execution of the combined structural means of prevention. If these were to be no better than those in use in the greater part of the metropolis and the towns throughout the country, and the outlay for drainage were to be an outlay for receptacles to serve as the means of accumulating decomposing deposits, and as latent magazines of pestilential gases, to be themselves cleansed from time to time of the accumulations at a great expense, or to be discharged to pollute the natural streams of the country, then the aggregate expenditure would, to the amount of the inefficiency, be an aggregate of so many millions of money spent in waste.
The _immediate_ cost of sickness and loss of employment falls differently in different parts of the country, but on whatsoever fund it does fall, it will be a gain to apply to the means of prevention that fund which is and must needs otherwise continue to be more largely applied to meet the charge of maintenance and remedies. Admitting, however, as a fact the misconception intended to be obviated, that the necessary expense of structural arrangements will be an immediate charge instead of an immediate means of relief to the labouring classes;—in proof that they have, in ordinary times, not only the means of defraying increased public rates but increased rents, I refer to the fact that the amount expended in ardent spirits (exclusive of wines), tobacco, snuff, beer, &c., consumed chiefly by them, cannot be much less than from 45,000,000_l._ to 50,000,000_l._ per annum in the United Kingdom. By an estimate which I obtained from an eminent spirit merchant, of the cost to the consumer of the British spirits on which duty is paid, the annual expenditure on them alone, chiefly by the labouring classes, cannot be less than 24,000,000_l._ per annum. If visible evidence of the means of payment were needed I would point to every gin-palace in the metropolis, or to similar places throughout the country, which are chiefly supported from the expenditure of the class of persons who are overcrowded and lodge most wretchedly, and its duty-paying building materials represents a portion of the money available as rent for abodes of comparative comfort. The cost of one dram per week would nearly defray the expense of the structural arrangements of drainage, &c., by which some of the strongest provocatives to the habit of drunkenness would be removed. In illustration of the extent of the means of defraying such expenses, even in some of the poorer districts, I would cite the following statement of the minister of the parish of Stevenston, in Ayrshire, given in the last statistical account from that parish:—
“When the survey by the present incumbent was completed in 1836, the population stood as follows:—
Number of families 833 Number of population 3681.”
The report further states—