APPENDIX. (continued 3)

3. That tobacco, far from producing, in those who prepare it, death and narcotism, does not even influence their nervous system; and that vertigo, syncope, muscular tremor, convulsions, and other like evils, which have been charged against it, have never existed in the manufactories, though the men sleep in the midst of the most subtil preparations, or, at least, are not to be attributed to that cause.

4264. Not only is the tobacco without any effect on the health during the first years devoted to its preparation, it has not the least ill consequences in more advanced life. Feebleness and great age, or causes altogether accidental, have been the sole ground for dismissing the workmen.

5. There are some professions which, without destroying health in an evident manner, abridge life; but a great number of those who work on tobacco reach, and even surpass, the ordinary limit of human existence.

6. It is proved by innumerable facts, that the manufactories of tobacco are not in anywise injurious to the men, animals, or plants, which may exist in their vicinity.

It thus turns out, upon examination, that this much maligned substance is perfectly innocuous. “Yet what practitioner,” say MM. Parent Duchâtelet and D’Arcet, “who had not had occasion to visit the workshops and study their influence, would not be forced into belief by the imposing authorities we have quoted above; who of them would hesitate to regard as demonstrated opinions on which Ramazzini, Fourcroy, Cadet Gassicourt, Tourtelle, Percy, Patissier, Merat and others are unanimous, without a single person having uttered a contrary assertion? There are found among these authorities two members of the Royal Academy of Medicine, three members of the Academy of Sciences, two professors of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, one professor of the Faculty of Medicine of Strasbourg, two chemists, and two celebrated physicians—one French, the other Italian; in a word, six physicians and an apothecary, who held, and still hold, the most eminent places in the learned world. It is therefore evident that it is of the highest importance that trades and professions should be investigated differently from what they have hitherto been; and this importance daily increases, because of the progress and extension of arts and manufactures.”

18.—On the Habitations of the Lower Orders of Paris. No. 1.

The labouring classes are obliged to live in houses almost always dilapidated, insufficient, or unhealthy. Such is the lot of the poor man in all countries: the force of circumstances, the hard law of necessity, compel it. Yet, if it is impossible to remedy completely this state of things, may we not approximate to it, by building houses for every grade of the lower orders—not only of the honest poor, but of the debased and depraved? It appears to me that these houses would have a double advantage;—they would diminish the causes of public insalubrity, and offer to the honest and economical workman the means to procure a residence equal to his necessities, and capable of producing in him the taste for retirement and domestic peace so favourable to morals. It is especially in this last point of view that the amelioration of the dwellings of the poor and laborious class is to be ranked among the preservatives against vicious habits.

Rent being one of the most important and indispensable domestic expenses, the father of a family, pressed by other wants of the first necessity, naturally seeks the least costly habitation. Now, these habitations exist only in certain quarters, and in certain streets of those quarters: they are old, ruined, and filthy. The proprietors, in order to tenant them, let the lodgings very low, and thus attract the poorer families. If these lodgings were healthy, if they were sufficient for all the members of the family, there would be no room for censure; but they are foul, badly lighted, and neither air-tight nor water-tight. They are small, and as parents and children live and sleep in the same room, the overcrowding is both a cause of unhealthiness, and an offence against good morals. Moreover, the bad state and filth of the passages, privies, and sinks, give rise to infectious exhalations, which vitiate the air of these humble abodes, and affect the health of their 427inhabitants in a manner so much more mischievous that the greater part of them work all the day in crowded and ill-ventilated shops.

It would be worthy of a wise administration to remedy this dangerous complication. The task is doubtless difficult; but why not grapple with it boldly, instead of allowing to subsist in Paris, without any effort to destroy them, so many centres of infection which reduce to the level of the lowest animals the unfortunate beings who seek in them a retreat for the night.

Although the lodgings are not all repulsive, they are all alike open to criticism. Some offend by overcrowding, others by the mode of sleeping; others, lastly, by the absence of all ventilation, and even by a total want of air. Overcrowding is an evil which prevails in all the lodgings of the lowest class, and which aggravates the mischief resulting from the other inconveniences to which they are subject. The twenty-five or thirty thousand workmen employed in house-building, who flock to Paris every year from certain departments, congregate in chambers, and sleep there during the season. Many of these places are kept by countrymen of their own, who attract them by their known probity, and the kindness they entertain for them. These chambers abound principally in the quarter of the Hôtel-de-Ville for the masons, and in the Faubourg Saint-Martin for the carpenters. These excellent workmen, by an exception more peculiar to them than to any others, look only to economy. They bargain with the lodging-house keeper, so as to obtain for six francs a month, besides the room, the washing of a shirt a-week, and a mess of soup every day, for which they themselves provide the bread. All that is not devoted to their slender wants is laid by for the support of their family, or the increase of their little patrimony. The police unanimously testify to the order and concord which reign in their chambers, as well as to their good conduct abroad. Is it not mournful that these fine fellows should sleep thus piled up in little garrets? Accustomed to work in the open air, the smallness of their rooms is more trying to them than to any others. Thus typhus fever is common among them, and sometimes attacks a whole chamber.

The overcrowding and deficient ventilation are still more injurious to workmen employed in manufactures. They pass every day from an infected lodging into a shop which is usually as unwholesome, and they are thus predisposed to contract readily contagious maladies.

Of all the lower orders, the chiffonniers inhabit the most infected and disgusting lodgings. It is vain to expect to descend into the lowest ranks of society,—inequality always appears somewhere. Even the chiffonniers have their notables. There are some a little more economical, a little more raised than the mass, and who enjoy a certain comfort. Those the most elevated occupy one or two small rooms, which they hire for themselves and their families; others possess a pallet, which serves them to sleep on, in the chamber of which they are one occupant among many. But this possession is more often collective than personal; and although shared, it does not fail to excite the envy of the poor wretches who lie in a species of trough, on rags, or on handsful of straw, with which the room is strewed. The police charged with the surveillance of the lodgings inhabited by the chiffonniers give an incredible picture of them. Each occupant keeps by him his basket, sometimes full of filth—and what filth! These savages do not hesitate to comprise dead animals in their gleanings, and pass the night by the side of this stinking prey. When the police go to these places, they experience a suffocating feeling, bordering on asphyxy. They order the windows to be opened when they can be opened, and the severe representations they address to the lodging-house keepers on this horrible mixture of human beings with decayed animal matter does not move them. They answer, that their lodgers are accustomed to it as well as themselves. A trait of manners peculiar to the chiffonniers, and which might be called their pastime, consists in rat-catching in the courts of the houses which they frequent. They entice the rats by the aid of certain 428substances attached to the rags they gather in the streets. With this view they put heaps of rags near the holes in the walls, and when they think that the rats are buried in the rags, they let loose into the court dogs trained for the purpose, and, in the twinkling of an eye, they make themselves masters of the rats, of which they eat the flesh and sell the skin.

The lodgings which receive at night the scum of society are thorough pest-houses. Those even which are not frequented by chiffonniers become, by the crowding of the inhabitants and their filthy habits, dangerous centres of infection. There are some chambers which contain as many as nine beds, separated by small passages hardly wide enough to get through, and these beds are often occupied by two persons who do not know each other, and have never seen one another. Difference of sex is no obstacle to these nocturnal and fortuitous cohabitations, although the police neglect nothing to prevent disorders. Among the female apartments there is one which is famous for the picture of decrepitude and abjectness which it presents. The women who occupy it are old drunkards, of whom several are suspected of theft. The spectacle of these animated mummies has something sepulchral.

One must bring to social anatomy a serious spirit of investigation, to form a just idea of the population which lives in the concealed recesses of society. The imagination, however fertile and daring, could never reach, in this matter, to the height of the reality: there is a character, a physiognomy, a strangeness, which it is necessary to have seen in order to assume the responsibility of an historian. Let no one tax with romance the traits of manners nor the description of places contained in this chapter. However softened by the reserve I have imposed on myself, they are not less true at bottom. I have sacrificed the coarseness of the outline and colouring out of respect to decency. It is the only infidelity of which I accuse myself. It is impossible not to feel the necessity to provide an efficacious remedy for a state of things so contrary to the rights of humanity and civilization.^[57]

19.—On the Habitations and Lodgings of the Lower Orders of Paris. No. 2.

There exist in Paris some thousands of individuals who have no domicile—who sleep to-day in one place, the next day in another—and who have recourse every evening to those houses where, for a payment usually very moderate, they can at least obtain a place to lie in, and a covering for their heads. It is not only strangers living temporarily in Paris who lodge in this manner; a mass of workmen, mostly single men, who have not stirred from the capital for ten, fifteen, and twenty years, prefer this kind of life to the occupation of a separate chamber. It may be affirmed, without fear of contradiction, that this population comprises all that is most drunken and debased in society. It is composed of people without foresight, and without a home, living from day to day, and trusting to the hospitals in the case of sickness or infirmity. It is in the lowest places in these disgusting haunts in which a person is lodged for six, four, and even for two sous, that the greater part of the prostitutes reside, who can scarcely, after purchasing food, lay aside from their daily gains the trifling sum necessary to avert sleeping in the open air. I have visited some of these lodgings, and it was not without a feeling of pain that I have seen human creatures reduced to live in such places, and that in the capital of France. To give a just idea of these abodes, I will extract some passages from the remarkable report which the inspector-general of furnished lodgings addressed to the prefect of police at the time of the cholera. It tells of nothing but houses in ruin, 429of straw for beds in a state of putrefaction, of darkness, of infectious smells, of filth without example. These are some of the passages:—

“Rue ——, No. —. This house is remarkable for its excessive dirt. It is a genuine centre of infection. It is inhabited solely by thieves, smugglers, beggars, and prostitutes. It is impossible to enter without being suffocated.

“Rue ——, No. —. This house fixes the attention by its construction and filth. There are no beds, except some loathsome pallets; animal remains, intestines, and the refuse of meals, are rotting in the court; all the chambers look on a corridor completely deprived of air and light; the sinks and the privies of every story are loathsome from ordure and fecal matter. It is the hideous abode of vice and misery.

“Rue ——, No. —. The court of this house is four feet square, and is full of dung; the chambers, crowded with occupants, open on it; the privies, dilapidated to the fifth floor, let the fecal matter fall upon the staircase, which is covered with it to the bottom. Many of the rooms have no other aperture than the door which opens upon this staircase. The house is the resort of sharpers, of thieves, of the most filthy prostitutes, and of everything that is most abject both of men and women.

“Rue du Faubourg ——, No. —. A house occupied from top to bottom by chiffonniers, mendicants, street-organists, street-walkers, and Italian boys, who go about with animals. All these sleep upon rags picked from the street, and of which there is a depôt on the ground-floor. More complete abjectness it is impossible to witness.

“Rue ——, No. —. This house is the resort of all that is most abased. It is exclusively inhabited by thieves, prostitutes, discharged criminals, beggars, vagabonds, gamesters, and every species of rogues. The greatest filth reigns everywhere; the windows are made of oiled paper instead of glass; the rooms are infected; at each story the ordure of the privies flows upon the staircase.”^[58]

Another French writer, M. Frégier, has given the following description of the external appearance of these abodes:—“The streets, not, at farthest, more than eight feet wide, are dirty, and flanked by lofty houses, four stories high, which are blackened by time. The height of the houses renders the streets gloomy and damp, and the houses themselves are dark, particularly on the ground-floor. Spirit shops, beer shops, and low eating houses abound. The gloom of these shops, joined to the repulsive physiognomy of the streets, infuse a secret horror into the visitor who is led there by the spirit of observation, and who knows that the greater part of the shops are the habitual resort of the lowest prostitutes, and of rogues that live in the neighbourhood. The lodgings and places of dissipation frequented by this part of the population are worthy, from their filth, of the streets and quarters in which they are situated.”^[59]

20.-Extract from the Report of the Commission appointed by the Central Board of Public Health to ascertain the Condition of the Dwellings of the Working Classes in Brussels, and to suggest Means for their Improvement.

Our inquiries have led us more particularly into the most populous and miserable districts into which the working classes are continually crowding, in proportion as new and elegant buildings have encroached upon the districts within the heart of the capital, formerly almost exclusively occupied by those classes. We have visited successively, in the district of Minimes, the rue des Pignons, and de la Samaritane, the cul-de-sac des Minimes, the alley des Prêtres, les rues de l’Epris, du Bourreau, de la Oventail, &c.; in 430the district de la Chapelle, les rues des Ménages, du Radro, de la Rasière, des Rats, du Renard, &c.; in the district de la rue d’Anderlecht, la rue des Navets, and the alley au Lait. We entered into a great number of the dwellings. We not only inquired, but also inspected, in order that we might ascertain the truth of the statements which were made to us. In now presenting the results of this inquiry, we do not hesitate to call your attention to the very important facts which have been gathered, at the same time that we ask your indulgence for the imperfect manner in which we have been able to perform the duties committed to our zeal and exertions.

The misery of the localities we have visited struck us immediately, from their appearance of uniform poverty. The streets and alleys, at all times dirty and ill-paved, in times of rain or thaw had the appearance of a pestilential mire; the water had no means of running off, and the smallness of the passages, the absence of courts or gardens, the crowding of families, and the detestable modes of building, rendered all circulation of air or ventilation quite impossible. The most indispensable conveniences were entirely wanting in most of the houses. They had no pumps, nor privies, nor sewers, except one in common. Indeed, we saw seventy houses that were provided with only one pump or one privy for the whole of that number.

If you enter the houses, the spectacle which is there presented to your view is, if anything, still more wretched. If the arrangement and order to be seen in some of the rooms recall the proverbial neatness of the Flemish, on the other hand, the houses occupied by large families, the alleys, the passages, and the stairs, are generally disgustingly filthy; the brush of the whitewasher never passes along them, or if they are ever cleaned, it is only to attract new tenants, who soon restore them to their primitive dirtiness. The steepness of the stairs, which, indeed, are often more like ladders, must be a perpetual cause of accidents, especially to the young children. The space occupied by a family is generally much too confined for each of the members to receive the quantity of fresh air necessary for the preservation of health. Hence their appearance is generally that of suffering and of bad condition. The children are pale and emaciated, and bear all the visible signs of premature suffering. The number of those who are rickety and scrofulous is considerable, and the mortality amongst the children and the aged exceeds all the most unfavourable averages. As we pass along these receptacles of misery, we feel astonished to see so few old people; an early death has carried them beyond their wretchedness: and if inquiries are made of parents, there are few who have not lost one or more children. It would be important to compare the proportion of deaths in the families of the rich and of the indigent. There is little doubt that this comparison would prove that misery, the want of proper air and space, the occupations of these people, and privations of every sort, sensibly diminish the period of life of the working classes.

In these wretched habitations everything is sacrificed generally to the rapacity of the proprietor. Every repair which affects the health or the comfort of the tenant merely, and that is not necessary to prevent the total ruin of the dwelling, is entirely neglected. What is the use of cleaning the walls for people whose habits are filthy? Why make windows for the entrance of air and light, or repair a sewer, or cleanse an alley covered with stagnant water, for people who are accustomed to pestilential smells? It is what a proprietor can never understand. Do not believe, however, that these dreadful abodes are rented at their proper value. On the contrary, the unfortunate people obliged to live in these houses, because all better ones are closed against them, in reality pay a higher rent than for a wholesome room in a good house.

431

21. Principles of Sanitary Police in Germany. Extracts from Professor Mohl.

It is one important duty of a State to provide abundant supplies of water for its people; and this duty is based on the impossibility, in many cases, for individuals by their own exertions to procure even the barest necessary quantity of water, and also that it requires much skill to distinguish that which is of a good quality from that which is injurious. The State ought, therefore, to provide water of the best quality in sufficient abundance, and to arrange also for its most extensive distribution: this is often attended with great difficulties and with much expense, if the district is naturally ill-supplied with springs of water; or where a town, being large, requires more water than its own surface springs, or those of the immediate neighbourhood, can supply. Without maintaining that the example given us by ancient nations, of munificent expenditure in the laying out of aqueducts, &c., is one which we, therefore, are obliged to follow, yet it may be demanded of the State, that it should provide water, at least so far as the absolute wants of life require, by aqueducts or pipes, or at least by cisterns, laid down at the public expense. For the sake of the poorer classes, it does not seem advisable that this duty should be handed over to a private company.^[60]

An injudicious economy on this point affects most injuriously the habits of cleanliness, and consequently the health of the lower classes. Water is properly distributed when every district is provided with an abundance of springs or wells. Loss of time, danger of fire, difficulties in the time of contagious diseases, are the consequences of the wells being few in number, even though each one should furnish a large stream of water.

It is a well-known fact, that locality has a great effect on the life and health of the inhabitants, and especially according as it offers the means of proper circulation of air or not. Thus, elevated situations are generally more healthy than places shut in by hills. In towns, those parts which are traversed by broad streets, are always more healthy than those which are so closely covered with houses as never to be properly ventilated, or where the sun can never penetrate to dry up the moisture; but an ill-drained situation is the most injurious to health.

The healthiness of a whole town is often essentially improved by the formation of a single sewer or drain: in other places, it requires very extended operations to produce the same effect. We may include amongst the various influences, the ditches surrounding the cities filled with stagnant water; by draining these, not only a purer air is gained, but also a fertile piece of land. It ought to be remarked here, however, that this work of draining water, and the removal of the mud, ought to be done in the cold season; if not, dangerous fevers will in all probability be the consequence.

The foul air arising from marshy land, when that is necessary, as in the cultivation of rice, is an evil for which there is no remedy.^[61]

Another means of improving the healthiness of a town, is by proper attention to the breadth, and to the direction of the streets in all the new quarters of the town. The streets ought to intersect, each other at right angles, and not at too great distances: the direction of the streets, also, should not run due north and south, as in that case the streets lying parallel in one 432direction, would be scorched by the sun, and without any shade during mid-day; whilst the streets running at right angles to these, would never be warmed by a ray of sunshine.

The health of towns would also be much improved by the prohibition of all cellars as dwelling-houses, by legislative enactments as to the elevation of the ground-floor of dwelling-houses above the level of the streets, also as to the construction of proper conveniences attached to dwelling-houses; and by regulations with regard to the proper size of windows: also by regulations regarding the strictest cleanliness of the streets, as this is more important in its effects on the health generally, than even the situation of a town, or attention to its mode of building. By attention to it, Holland is inhabitable; by the neglect of it, Cairo and Constantinople are the very hot-beds of the plague.

The first means to attain this cleanliness is by a proper paving of all the streets, in order to lay the district dry. Without this, the streets are either a stream of mud, or a sea of dust; in both cases equally injurious to the health. It is often expensive to get a hard material for the purpose of pavement; but when obtained, the expense of keeping it in repair is much less. When it is possible, the streets should be kept clean, by turning on them a stream of water,—the drains being always kept well open to receive it afterwards. Every inhabitant should be obliged to keep the portion of the street clean before his own door. The refuse of the town ought to be conveyed away, at the expense of the town, to some part of the country, removed from all dwelling-houses.

22.—A Report on the Statements of Dr. Mauthner regarding the Cotton Manufactures, given at the Monthly Meeting on the 2nd of November, 1841. By Herr L. M. Von Pacher.

At the meeting of the 7th of June, Dr. Mauthner sent in a report on the condition of the children employed in the cotton-works, in which he gave an exposition of the evidence, partly of his own experience and partly on the reports of others, of the moral and physical evils which the various branches of manufacture bring with them, and proposals were put into the hands of the owners of the mills for preventing the evils so strongly denounced.

The learned meeting determined to appoint a special commission to inquire into so grave and important a matter. This body held its first meeting on the 29th of July, at which our much-esteemed chairman presided, and I had the honour to be commissioned to inquire into that part of the report of Dr. Mauthner which treats more particularly of the effects of the cotton manufactures.

Before I enter upon the discussion on the special points of inquiry, permit me to lay before you a few general remarks on the nature of our inquiry, and of the condition of the people employed in the cotton-works, more particularly of Lower Austria. It must first be conceded that the condition of the children working in the factories is closely connected with the condition of the rest of the working population, and cannot be considered separately. Our president felt the necessity of considering them in connexion throughout the various parts of the inquiry which he had proposed to himself; and, before the commencement of our inquiry, it was generally agreed that our attention should extend also to the condition of the adult workpeople.

We could not conceal from ourselves that we were undertaking a subject at once the most important and the most delicate,—an inquiry which might disclose to the general public that the unhappy signs of the times were to be seen in our affairs, and which also, without cause, might alarm a very excitable class as to their own condition. English and French 433journals are full of the most striking descriptions of the physical and moral evils of the manufacturing population; and not without ground, as we learn from the various commissions of inquiry appointed by the respective governments. With your permission I will quote a passage from a report which the Commission de l’Intendance Sanataire du Nord drew up in the year 1832, and which unfortunately has not been found exaggerated even in later periods. It is word for word as follows:—

“No one without personal inspection can form any conception of the dwellings of our workpeople: the neglect in which they live brings evils with it which makes their misery unbearable, indeed almost fatal. Their poverty, by the negligence and demoralization which produces it, becomes almost destructive. In their dark cellars, in their cellar-like rooms, the air is never changed; it is perfectly poisonous. The walls are covered with filth. If a bed is ever found, it is always filthy, and made up of foul and rotten straw. It is covered with a coarse and dirty rag, the colour or material of which can hardly be distinguished; it is a miserable threadbare coverlet. The dirty and worm-eaten pieces of furniture and utensils are thrown about without any order; the closed windows scarcely allow any light to pass through their smoky panes, many of which are stuffed with paper, and (it will hardly be credited) they not unfrequently nail the window fast in order that it may run no risk of being broken in the opening and shutting of it. The floors of their houses are dirtier than the rest of the house, covered with ordure, ashes, rotten straw, and all that has been brought in from the filthy streets outside; it is a receptacle for every kind of vermin. The air is no longer fit to breathe; one feels in these abodes stunned with an overpowering and horrible stench, a smell of excrement, filth of every kind, and of human beings. And the inhabitant of these abodes, in what state is he? His clothes are in rags, and tossed on. His hair has never known a comb, and is covered with the material with which he is working; and his skin, though filthy, is yet distinguishable on his face, but on the other part of his body, concealed by his rags, there are accumulations of every kind. Nothing is so fearfully dirty as the old and wrinkled of these demoralised creatures. Their abdomens distended, their limbs distorted, their backs bent forward, their legs twisted, their necks scarred and full of swellings, their fingers festered, their joints swollen and weak, and, lastly, these unfortunate creatures are tormented, we may say eaten up, with vermin of all kinds.”

These descriptions were given by M. de Chambert, Boglli, Brigaudet, Kulman, and Themistocles Lestibuwers. I shall be excused for having given this long and disgusting extract, as it shows clearly what was the state and the evils which could call forth those general and loud complaints, and which made it a duty for government to take the matter into consideration. The whole picture is too wretched to be brought into the most distant comparison with the condition of the poorest of our workpeople, who are in general well fed and decently clothed, and show in the furniture of their cleanly-kept houses the fruits of their small earnings. They, together with their children, enjoy excellent health, and in general deserve the character of being a sober, industrious, orderly, tractable, and attached class. But a large population of workpeople, living entirely on the daily labour of their hands, wanting many things in external circumstances which, to the eye accustomed to luxury and abundance, are considered indispensable, under the continual pressure of strict regulations and continuous labour, is not a very enviable picture to the superficial observer, and often gives occasion to many unfounded lamentations and ill-timed apprehensions, if not to one-sided measures, which are, however, powerless against the stern necessity of supporting thousands of human beings, which are disturbing when they shake the established order of things, and are destructive when they make a happy and quiet class of workpeople discontented with their lot.

The cotton-works in Lower Austria, which are almost all situated within 434a circle of a few miles around Vienna, employ about 10,000 hands, for whose accommodation solid and roomy dwellings have been erected for the most part at the same time as the works were established.

Most of the mills have not only a considerable number of dwellings for the married workers, but large, separate sleeping-rooms for the unmarried of both sexes, which are provided with beds, and lighted and warmed at the expense of the mill. When the larger and older mills were built, there was erected for the boys and girls a so-called children’s house, in which, at that time, the children were provided at the expense of the mill with food, clothes, and instruction, and who were bound by certain regulations issued by the government, and were placed under the inspection of the respective clergyman and physician of the district. After the works were extended, they found they were obliged to give up these institutions; and they now drew the requisite number of hands, partly from the descendants of their own people, and partly from the children of the country people, who, in the course of time, becoming informed as to the condition of the children in the factories, send their own children after they are too big for home employment and to go to school, to work in the mills for a certain number of years; after which, however, they generally return to their agricultural labour. On the confines of Hungary, on a Sunday evening, hundreds of young, robust, and healthy workpeople, carrying with them the provisions for the week, may be seen coming to the mill, whence, on the Saturday evening, they may be seen going in merry groups carrying their wages back to their own homes. For these, and all who do not live with their parents, decent and proper rooms are provided, sometimes in that which used to be the children’s house, or in other places equally under inspection.

The employment in cotton mills, and more especially of the children, requires attention, and a certain quickness or sleight of hand more than any bodily exertion. The whole of the hands are employed in roomy and light apartments, which in summer are well ventilated, and in winter warmed with great regularity, and there is nothing in the material, nor in the processes of the manufacture, which can be injurious to the health. The hours of work, which are generally from four to five in the morning to seven or eight in the evening, are interrupted by three meal-times; and on Saturday the mill is closed from three to four hours earlier. The weekly wages of boys and girls are from 3 to 5 florins, and those of the adults from 6 to 18, besides a house free; and it is not only sufficient for their wants, but gives them also the means of laying by a little saving, examples of which are not unfrequent.

Under these circumstances the health is not, and cannot be, anything else than extremely good; the large number of old who are still robust and in employment, the experience and evidence of all the physicians who practise amongst the mill population, the result of the reports of the district physician, but above all, the healthy state they were in during several epidemics, and also the small proportion of deaths as seen in the parish register, all afford the most striking evidence of the fact of their healthiness. Every noxious circumstance must undoubtedly bear with it the traces of its evil; street riots, mobs of workpeople, and excesses of all kinds, breaches of the law and criminal acts, numerous and open concubinage, large numbers of illegitimate children (in many manufacturing towns amounting to one-fourth of the whole births), and, lastly, the large numbers of entirely destitute and disabled workpeople who seek for assistance from the parish and from all charities; these are the melancholy signs which mark in England and France the state of the manufacturing population.

In the course of 40 years, during which the Austrian manufactures have arisen so near to the capital, and have been well watched by the police, such moral and physical deterioration of so large a population could not have escaped notice; but I ask where are those incontrovertible signs which an hospital or a workhouse more frequently attended or applied to by the mill 435population than by any other poor class of the community would be? where are those prevailing diseases? where is the increased mortality? and, lastly, where are the traces of moral and mental degradation? Certainly it would be unjust to throw the stone at those who have linked with the unavoidable demands of business circumstances which might be measured by the scale of a more fortunate and independent existence.

Dr. Mauthner states, “that the weakness of the body and constitution of the children employed in the great cotton-works in the neighbourhood is very striking.

“1st. That the race of men employed in those establishments is much less robust than that of the peasantry of the neighbouring villages.

“2nd. That bauchscropheln and scrophuleuse consumption are not uncommon; that inflammatory diseases are very rare.

“3rd. That premature old age and early death is the common fate.”

Even supposing that since the establishment of the spinning-works there could have been created a peculiar race of people, still the supposition could not prove more than that the constitution of the workers had been modified by their employment and their mode of living, since experience shows that the duration of life is not shorter than that of the other working classes.

2dly. That the above-mentioned diseases principally affect children of the earliest age, the former about the fifth year, the last about the seventh year; and that it is to be premised that the children who never work in the mill before their ninth year, come sometimes with the disease already developed upon them. The children of the mill hands are, indeed, less attacked by this disease than the children of the poor agricultural labourer, because they are generally better housed and clothed than these. That inflammatory diseases seldom appear is no sign of a weak constitution, since, on the one hand, these seldom appear amongst children; and, on the other hand, they do show themselves amongst the adults, whenever there are external influences and inducing circumstances to produce them; and all the physicians practising in the cotton-works agree in stating that, with the exception of rheumatic affections, there are no peculiar forms of disease amongst the cotton-spinning population.

3rdly. As to the statement of premature old age and early deaths, it is one which is contradicted by all the experience of half a century. The registers of deaths made by the clergymen of the parishes give the most exact information as to the proportion of deaths. The results of these are,

1st. That the number of deaths, especially amongst the manufacturing people, is proportionally less than amongst the agricultural labourers;

2nd. That, as amongst other classes, the deaths are the most numerous of children under two years;

3rd. That between the age of 12 and 16 there are the fewest deaths;

4th. That there are a great many between 60 and 70.

The means proposed by Dr. Mauthner for obtaining a better physical and moral state are,

1st. Shortening the hours of labour;

2ndly. Interrupting the hours of labour by school instruction: on both which points there could be no discussion, since these are already provided for by the law.

With regard to the long working hours, which certainly appear very oppressive to the unemployed spectator, long habit has accustomed the workers to them, and they do not produce any perceptible injury, more especially as the people are paid in proportion to the time they are employed. It is to be remembered that there remain eight hours for rest, none of which are spent in going and coming to their homes, as is the case in other countries, as, for instance, in Mulhausen, where one-third of the workers live from one to two miles from the mill.

It is not during the hours of well-regulated and orderly employment that there is any danger of demoralization, but during the leisure hours. 436Villermé, in his valuable work on the Etat Physique et Morale des Ouvriers, states that the moral and physical deterioration of the manufacturing class in Rheims, where they only work from 10 to 12 hours, is most striking. The hours of work being ended, the people fill the taverns and the streets with prostitutes, whilst the workers from the numerous manufactories of Sedan, who work 15 hours, are sober, moral, and orderly. He mentions also that few manufactories employ so many robust hands as the spinning works at Sedan.

3dly. To employ more than one spinner to attend to a new spinning machine which turns a greater number of spindles.

It would in general be well to trust to the manufacturer the number of workers he should employ, as his interest compels him to use a requisite number of hands. In this particular case it ought to be stated that, owing to the progress of machinery, the spinner having 800 or 1000 spindles has less labour than formerly, when he had only 300 spindles to attend to.

4thly. That the children, and mill hands generally, should be kept in good order, by sick funds and savings’ banks.

In most works there is established a kind of sick fund, to which each hand contributes weekly from 1 to 2 kr. for every guilder they earn; or there are voluntary contributions to those who are invalided; or, lastly, when they receive medical advice gratis, they have this fund to expend in medicines. If this fund is sufficient to assist the sick, it is not enough to support those in old age, and they must of necessity depend on that help which they are entitled to as being the fathers of families; and indeed every country mill can count many families amongst the workers in which an aged father or mother is supported by their children.

The formation of regulations, binding on all and applicable to all cases, as to the employment of children in mills, together with all other regulations which affect the internal arrangements of a manufactory, is incontestibly attended with many difficulties, and indeed one might say with insuperable obstacles. French legislation has employed itself three years with this object. The law has appeared, and we have read it in our public journals. In the leading principles it does not seem to contain anything but what has been in practice in Austria for many years, though of our proceedings in regard to minute details may be said what the minister of finance prognosticated in the Chamber of Peers on the 31st May, 1837, when he said, “At different times government has felt the necessity of a similar law. It has occupied itself with it, and made every inquiry on the subject, but the law itself presents extreme difficulties: many countries have attempted one; England has even passed a law on this subject, but it is not observed.”

The interests of the children, it is repeated, have been protected by the regulations issued by the government of Lower Austria, the last of which were issued on July 16, 1839. For the moral and mental development of the labourer in general there is only one great panacea: this lies in the extension of trade, in the security and steadiness of employment, and in the power of the labourer to maintain himself and his children comfortably and respectably with the work of his own hands.

It is to be hoped that our manufacturers will progress in the gradual and prudent course which is equally removed from stupid and blind adherence to old things, as from the spirit of hasty imitation and the headlong pursuit of novelties. We shall then not have to fear the creation of a dissolute and depraved class of workpeople, as we see in other countries. For the rest, trust to the wise care of our government—trust to the sound sense and excellent disposition of our labourers—and, above all, trust something to the humanity and to the opinions of the manufacturers of Austria themselves.

437

Remarks on the Cotton Manufactory in Schwadorf.

There is here, under the superintendence of the master of the works, a sick-fund for the workpeople, to which every man, woman, and child together must contribute 1½ xr. kreutzer for every guilder they receive in wages; for this they obtain not only for themselves, but also for the members of their families who do not come to the mill (such as the little children and the mothers), gratuitous medical advice and medicines; and, further, the men, when they are prevented from coming to the mill by sickness, receive a 12–kreutzer per day.

The number of hands is on an average 170 men, 220 women and adult girls, and 100 children; total, 550 individuals.

The amount of contribution to the relief-fund was, in

1839 f.380·4 per day 62 xr.

1840 f.410·56 per day 67 xr.

Though on an average from five to six men of the 170 employed are prevented from coming to their work, yet of these there are four who have received support from the fund, on account of the infirmities of age and incurable diseases, for many years; so that, on an average, there is only from one to two who are prevented from coming to their work by sickness.^[62] A part of the above-mentioned 550 mill hands live in the adjacent district; these, when they cannot come to the medical man belonging to the factory, are attended by the surgeon of the district; but then, on the other hand, there must be set against these the members of the families who do not work at the mill, as above-mentioned, and which are about equal in number. Indeed, the number of those coming for medical advice of the factory physician, and to which the following tables relate, may be from 600 to 700. The total population of Schwadorf is about 1700, of which, on an average of the last 10 years, according to the parish register, 62 died annually. Of these, according to the register kept by the factory physician, only 13, on an average, were from the mill population; at least, as it appears in the last seven years, during which the present physician has attended.

Attended. Died.

1834 1211 23 (N.B. Cholera.)

1835 852 10

1836 653 15

1837 540 14

1838 394 12

1839 298 6

1840 345 10

4293 90

Average 617 13

438

A Special View of the state of Sickness in the years 1839, 1840.

Diseases. Treated. Deaths.

1839. 1840. 1839. 1840.

Men. Women. Children. Total. Men. Women. Children. Total. Men. Women. Children. Total. Men. Women. Children. Total.

Inflammation and consumption 10 17 10 37 35 19 10 64

Nervous fever 19 4 23 8 9 17 1 1

Diseases of the first class 23 25 7 55 34 18 19 71

Chronic disease of the skin 15 11 5 31 12 9 14 35

Bleeding and other cleansings 5 16 3 24 3 13 16

Swelling of the scutiformed glandule 10 10 6 6

Consumption 2 2 2 2 2 1 3 2 1 3

Spasms or convulsions 15 6 21 1 10 10 21 1 1 2 2 2

Green sickness 20 20 30 30

Rheumatism 5 7 12 4 6 10

Worms 3 2 22 27 3 20 23

Water in the head 4 4 14 14 3 3

Scrofula 2 2 3 3 1 1 1 1

Sundries 5 11 2 18 20 20

Total 83 143 70 298 100 145 100 345 1 2 3 6 1 2 7 10

Although the number of deaths only includes those who lived in the village of Schwadorf itself, yet under the “treated” are included also all those from the neighbourhood whose illness was not too great to prevent them coming to Schwadorf for medical advice. It further ought to be remarked upon the apparently large number of cases of sickness, that as the people have medical advice and medicine gratis, that they come for it on the slightest illness, and the more so as not only the master of the works but also the physician encourages them as much as possible to do so, convinced that in most cases, by timely aid, more serious illnesses are prevented. Lastly, it is to be understood that these memoranda or notices have not been made for any special object, but only for our own information.

Remarks on the Factories in Neunkirchen.

1. Screw Works. There exists in connexion with this mill a sick-fund, in which, however, the hands dwelling out of Neunkirchen do not participate. Those who live in Neunkirchen pay to this fund weekly 1 xr. for every guilder they earn as wages. They receive for this medical advice and medicine gratis; and if they cannot come to work, the following relief, namely, (those under Wr. Wf. fl. 4½ weekly wages have nothing)

From fl. 4½ to 6 daily 20 xr. W. W.

6 to 9 daily 24 xr. W. W.

Over 9 daily 30 xr. W. W.

Those Croatians who live in their houses do not receive any quota from the sick-fund, but are, of course, attended. As to those who are out of the district, they also receive medical advice gratis, if they can come to the factory physician, even though they do not contribute to the sick-fund. Only few have families, but these also, in case of sickness, receive medical assistance.

439The number of hands varies considerably from 200 to 300; on an average about 250; of these may be,

Men and adults 180

Women 20

Children from 13 to 17 years 50

The total contribution to the relief-fund was, in the

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.

440

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

441

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]

24.—Extract from Dr. Ferriar’s Advice to the Labouring Classes in Manchester; given in 1800.

Avoid living in damp cellars; they destroy your constitutions and shorten your lives. No temptation of low rents can counterbalance their ill effects. You are apt to crowd into the cellars of new buildings, supposing them to be clean; this is a fatal mistake; a new house is always damp for two years, and the cellars which you inhabit under them are generally as moist as the bottom of a well. In such places you are liable to bad fevers, which often throw the patient into a decline, and you are apt to get rheumatic complaints, that continue for a long time and disable you from working.

If you cannot help taking a cellar, be attentive to have all the windows put in good repair before you venture into it, and, if possible, get it whitewashed. If you attempt to live in a cellar with broken windows, colds and fevers will be the certain consequences.

442In many parts of the town you sleep in back rooms, behind the front cellar, which are dark and have no proper circulation of air. It would be much more healthy to sleep to the front; at least when you have large families, which is often the case, you ought to divide them, and not to crowd the whole together in the back cellar.

Keep your persons and houses as clean as your employments will permit, and do not regret the loss of an hour’s wages when your time is occupied in attending to cleanliness. It is better to give up a little time occasionally to keep your houses neat, than to see your whole family lying sick in consequence of working constantly without cleaning. It would be of great service if you could contrive to air your bed and bed-clothes out of doors once or twice a-week.

Always wash your children from head to foot with cold water before you send them to work in the morning. Take care to keep them dry in their feet, and never allow them to go to work without giving them their breakfast, though you should have nothing to offer them but a crust of bread and a little water. Children who get wet feet, when they go out early fasting, seldom escape fever or severe colds.

Your health will always be materially injured by the following circumstances:—living in small back buildings, adjoining to the open vaults of privies; living in cellars where the streets are not properly soughed or drained; living in narrow bye-streets where sheep are slaughtered, and where the blood and garbage are allowed to stagnate and corrupt, and perhaps more than all, by living crowded together in dirty lodging-houses, where you cannot have the common comforts of light and air.

It should be unnecessary to remind you that much sickness is occasioned among you by passing your evenings at ale-houses, or in strolling about the streets or in the fields adjoining to the town. Perhaps those who are most apt to expose themselves in this manner would pay little attention to dissuasive arguments of any kind; however, those who feel an interest in your welfare cannot omit making the remark.

25.—Principles of Jurisprudence and Responsibility for Accidents.

(Extract from the First Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the Labour Children in Factories.)

From the evidence collected, it appears that in many of the mills, numerous accidents of a grievous nature do occur to the workpeople. It appears also that these accidents may be prevented, since in some mills where more care of the workpeople is in general displayed they are prevented. It appears further, that whilst some manufacturers liberally contribute to the relief of the sufferers, many other manufacturers leave them to obtain relief from public bounty, or as they may.

The refusal to contribute to the expense of the cure of those who have been maimed is usually founded on the assertion that the accident was occasioned by culpable heedlessness or temerity. In the cases of the children of tender years, we do not consider this a valid defence against the claim for contribution from the employer. We cannot suppose an obligation to perpetual caution and discretion imposed on children at an age when those qualities do not usually exist. The indiscretion of children must, we consider, be presumed and guarded against as a thing that must necessarily, and to a greater or less extent, be manifested by all of them.

But the accidents which occur to the adults, are of themselves evidence (unless they were wilfully incurred in a state of delirium) that the individual used all the caution of which he is capable; as it may be presumed that the loss of life or limb, or the infliction of severe pain, would rarely be wantonly incurred.

443Some of the manufacturers have proposed that the inspectors, who they think ought to be appointed to insure compliance with any legislative regulation, should have power to inspect the factories, and direct what parts of the machinery should be fenced off, and that after such directions have been complied with, the manufacturer should be relieved from further responsibility.

We concur in the proposition for giving such power to inspectors, but we do not concur in the proposal to relieve the manufacturer from responsibility.

We apprehend that no inspector would probably be so fully conversant with all the uses of every variety of machinery as to be acquainted with all the dangers which may be provided against; and also, that whilst there is much machinery which does not, from its nature, admit of its being boxed off, there is much that could not be made entirely safe without the reconstruction of whole manufactories.

Excluding from consideration the cases of culpable temerity on the part of the adults, and assuming that the aid to be given when accidents do occur shall afford no bounty on carelessness, the cases which remain for provision are those of adults which may be considered purely accidental. Taking a case of this class, where mischief has occurred in the performance of the joint business of the labourer and his employer; the question is, by which of these parties the pecuniary consequences of such mischief shall be sustained.

We conceive that it may be stated, as a principle of jurisprudence applicable to the cases of evils arising from causes which ordinary prudence cannot avert, that responsibility should be concentrated, or, as closely as possible, apportioned on those who have the best means of preventing the mischief. Unless we are to impose on the workman the obligation of perpetual care and apprehension of danger, the nature of the injuries inflicted are of themselves evidence that all the care which can be taken by individuals attending to their work is taken by them; it is only the proprietor of the machinery who has the most effectual means of guarding against the dangers attendant upon its use.

If such an extent of pecuniary responsibility for the accidents which are incidental to the use of the machines is imposed upon him, those consequences will be more likely to be taken into account, and to be guarded against at the time of the erection of the machinery. The workmen are not prone to regard immediate dangers, still less dangers which are remote and contingent, and many of the accidents are of a nature apparently too uncertain to form data for insurance. It could hardly be expected that a workman in entering a manufactory should object that any portion of the machinery is dangerous, and that it ought to be boxed off. But the proprietor of the machine is necessarily the person who can best foresee all the consequences incidental to its use, and can best guard against them. By throwing upon him a portion of the pecuniary responsibility for those mischiefs, we combine interest with duty, and add to the efficiency of both.

If the pecuniary consequences from unavoidable accidents were considerable, the imposition of the proposed responsibility may be met by the master, or by a deduction from the wages. Considering the defective nature of most existing modes of provision against sickness and casualties by benefit or friendly societies, and also, unhappily, the large proportion of those who, from improvidence, do not take advantage of these or other means, (of which some portion of the working-class avail themselves in so exemplary and admirable a manner), if we were to devise a form of insurance against the casualties in question, available to all classes, we should recommend that measures should be taken to secure from the master the regular deductions of the amount of the contribution of the persons employed.

We propose that in the case of all accidents whatsoever from machinery occurring to children under fourteen years of age, the proprietor of the 444machinery shall pay for the medical attendance on the child, and all the expenses of the cure, until medical attendance is no longer required; and also during the same period, shall continue to pay wages at the rate of half the wages enjoyed by the individual in question at the time of the occurrence of the accident.

We are of opinion that persons above that age, in all cases where the injury was received from accidents in the ordinary course of business, where there was no culpable temerity, should receive similar treatment at the expense of the employer, and should also be allowed half wages until the period of cure, as we believe that an allowance of full wages would occasion considerable fraud in the protraction of that period, especially in the cases of accidents of a less serious nature.

We think that the remedy should be given on complaint before a magistrate or the inspector.

“With regard to fatal injuries occasioned by wilful negligence, we have at present no new remedies to suggest as substitutes to those afforded by the common law.”

[In a recent case, I believe in Scotland, 300l. damages were recovered against the owner of an old mine for the loss of a child, which had fallen into it accidentally from the opening not being properly protected.

It is sometimes stated that the owners of mines already come within the principle, that they are interested in prevention, inasmuch as they incur loss from the stoppage of work and otherwise by accidents. The fact, however, of no exertions being made for prevention might be adduced as proof that the share of the loss was not sufficiently great, and the interest therefore inadequate; but it will generally be found that no share of the loss falls directly on the manager of the works, and that the pecuniary consequences are so far diffused over numerous partners as not to be felt, and that this is so particularly in works or machinery belonging to joint-stock companies.

In Prussia, as well as Austria, deductions are required by the law to be made from the wages of the men engaged in mining operations, which deductions constitute a sick-fund for the support of the men during ordinary sickness. The following is a translation of the articles of the Prussian code in respect to the responsibility now imposed on the owners for accidents to the workpeople in Prussia as in Austria:—

Art. 214. “The proprietors of the mines are bound to take care of the miners who are wounded or fall into bad health in their service.

Art. 215. “When the provincial laws do not contain any express provisions thereon, the person who works the mine shall pay to the sick or wounded workman four weeks’ wages if the produce of the mine does not cover the expense of working, or if it be only just equal to it, or if it be required to defray the antecedent expenses of the mine; and when the mine produces a sufficient dividend, the workman shall be paid eight weeks’ wages in case the illness lasts that length of time.

Art. 216. “If the illness lasts a greater length of time, the miner shall be supported out of the sick-fund.

Art. 217. “The expenses of medical treatment, and of burial of a miner wounded or killed by accident, shall be defrayed from the same fund.

Art. 218. “The widow of a miner has also the right to claim the gratuitous wages fixed by Article 215.

Art. 219. “The gratuitous wages granted to the miner in case of wounds or death are not allowed if the miner has killed or wounded himself with premeditation, or by any gross neglect, working otherwise than in the mine.

Art. 220. “If the wound or death has been occasioned by malice or the gross neglect of a third person, the latter shall indemnify the sick-fund and the proprietors of the mine.”—E. C.]

445

26. Extract from the Report of John L. Kennedy, Esq., Barrister at Law, to the Commissioners for Inquiring into the Labour of Young Persons in Mines and Manufactories.

In all the instances which I have met with of accidents occurring in coal-mines, as I have repeatedly stated, negligence forms an almost invariable element—negligence which is fairly assignable to one or other of the parties concerned in this branch of industry: either negligence on the part of the colliers, whether adults or children, in omitting those means of safety which are within their own control, or negligence on the part of the superintendent, or ultimately of the owners of the mines, in not providing the means, or duly regulating those means of safety, which are not within the discretion of any child or the control of the individual workman.

The children who are below the age of discretion are of course not to be deemed responsible for that which they have not to exercise; and unfortunately in the present state of education of the adult colliers, a large proportion of them are in the same category as children in respect to the want of discretion; and hence arises the first difficulty of any direct legislative interference for their protection.

Whatever detailed provisions might be laid down in any statute, or directed by any public officer acting under the authority of any statute, I can see no reason to believe that they would be adopted below ground by such a population.

For example; the safety-lamp is provided by most, and directed by all proprietors and underlookers to be used by the colliers; but, as we have seen, they habitually set aside the protection thus provided for them, though they do so under a penalty of maiming or death—and what more severe penalty could any statute impose or enforce with greater certainty? Education appears to me to be the slow and remote but complete preventive of those calamities arising from indiscretion. The efficiency of this remedy, the fact that ignorance and brutality are not essential to mining occupations, will, I apprehend, be shown by the comparative superiority of a better educated class of miners, namely, the Cornish miners and the lead miners of Lead Hills, Lanarkshire, who often, with less wages than the colliers of this district, attain a superior condition and are comparatively free from the like instances of indiscretion.

It will, however, be seen that there is a large class of accidents which comes within the control of responsible agents, and which would scarcely be within the control of the colliers, even if they had the discretion. For example, the sufficiency of the winding-ropes, guiders and side-rods, chairs, sliders, casing of the pit sides with brick and mortar, covers over the tubs to prevent coal falling on those ascending and descending in them, and the various other means of security in superior pit gearing, which, having been adopted in some mines with success, are demonstrably practicable, and no doubt ought to be used in all other similar cases.

But these practical measures appear to me from their number to be incapable of specification in any statute that could be discussed or tolerated in Parliament, if it should take upon itself the direction of mining operations, and they are apparently too numerous and important, to be intrusted to the discretion of any public officer. Positive regulations by statute or under legislative sanction would, I apprehend, impede changes in machinery and in operations which are commonly beneficial to the whole class of the workpeople. In whatsoever mode such preventive regulations were prescribed, the enforcement of them would, I apprehend, imply an inspection by a public officer; from the nature of the places I should doubt the efficiency of such inspection. I doubt whether inspectors could be found who would faithfully descend shafts two or three times the depth of the height of St. Paul’s, and amidst wet and damp and noxious gases crawl or 446allow themselves to be waggoned through miles of dark drains and subterranean caverns, with the chance of the roof falling on them or being burnt by explosion, to see that all was right, and not act on the easy assumption that it was so.

I believe, in the course of my own performance of the disagreeable duty assigned to me, I became tolerably familiar with such places; but I could not but perceive that I might easily have been deceived, and was always at the mercy of the colliers themselves for the completeness of my information.

No familiarity diminishes the disagreeable duty of proceeding through low, hot, and damp galleries, bent with the chest on the knees, under the oppression of clothes damp with moisture or perspiration, which the inspector must endure.

Proprietors themselves, whose direct interest it is to be aware of what is going forward under ground, are obliged to depend for inspection on their underlookers or foremen, who have been colliers.

In a large proportion of accidents, especially those where the witnesses are themselves destroyed, it would, I conceive, be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prove against underlookers or proprietors the neglect of proper precaution. For example, in explosions of fire-damp the air-doors are frequently blown to pieces, the waggons dashed to atoms, the roof brought in by collapse from the exhaustion of the air in the mine, and, in short, the position of everything so completely deranged that it would be impossible to arrive at any correct conclusion as to the state of things previous to the accident.

A boy is thrown out of a tub in ascending the pit-shaft by the chairs coming in contact half way, the chairs may or may not be broken, the body is found dashed to pieces at the bottom; if it so happen that there are no marks either on the chairs or basket to show that they have been in contact, no one would be so bold as to swear that it was so. Numerous cases of this nature might be cited.

It may be a question whether extensive remedies are not practicable by the application of the principle of concentrating responsibility on those who have the best means of prevention, by such self-acting arrangements as shall give them a direct interest in prevention. Coal-owners and the underlookers of collieries assume that all the accidents which are not caused by the negligence of the workmen themselves are absolutely unavoidable, and in the present state of their interest and knowledge I believe them to be sincere in their assumption. As evidence of its truth, and in justification, they may adduce the frequent return of verdicts of simply “accidental death” upon inquests before the coroners. Conceding most fully that a large extent of accident is an unavoidable and essential concomitant of this branch of industry, the question then arises, Why should not this branch of industry bear the whole of its necessary and unavoidable consequences?

The more this question is examined, the more I apprehend will it be found desirable that the full expenses of such accidents should be borne by that branch of industry in which they are created; in which case they will be borne either by those who, as producers, have the chief profits, or they will fall, as I apprehend they ought to fall, on the consumers.

The satisfaction of the pecuniary losses attendant on personal injuries from accidents, heavy and long continued as those losses are, will be found to be a consideration of minor importance to the prevention of the accidents; and, above all, the prevention of the degraded mental condition of the reckless population amidst which such accidents occur. By imposing the pecuniary consequences, not as penalties for omissions, which at present are really not wilful, but as a trade charge or insurance payable by the branch of industry liable to the accidents, an interest will be created in their prevention on the part of those who alone have the means of efficiently preventing them. Instead of a penalty in the expense to which they might 447be put, they would thus have a perpetually acting bounty in the saving of every new improvement, and would be made the most efficient inspectors—having in every foreman and collier a superintendent in himself, gratis to the public.

It is a maxim of this district that manufacturers “only improve or adopt improvements upon threadbare profits.” Under the bounty created by the just and necessary charge upon the mines of the insurance against accidents and calamities, it can scarcely be doubted that the coal-owners would find out and adopt improvements in working of which they are themselves at present unaware. They would, moreover, have an interest in the removal by education of that dense ignorance, constituting that state of mind out of which the acts of “indiscretion” or heedlessness, and the other daily acts which disturb the community, emanate. Even with the present adult colliers, they would have an interest in exercising such a preventive control as would be exemplified by a case in another branch of industry which I have cited in the section on Accidents in my Report on the Calico Print-Grounds—I allude to the case of the men who were employed in kyanizing logs of wood on the Bolton and Preston Railway. It would, of course, follow from the adoption of the principle of charging the costs of accidents as an insurance or trade charge on the employment, or on those who had the best means of preventing them—viz. the coal-proprietors—that they should be enabled to distribute the principle of self-insurance and responsibility on their underlookers and workmen.

I avail myself of an illustration of the operation of the principle of preventive legislation which appears to me to be applicable to cases of the nature of those which are the subjects of this Report.

Formerly convicts were transported in private vessels engaged for the purpose at a charge of a certain amount per head on the number embarked. The ships belonged to respectable merchants and owners; and on that responsibility which is supposed to attach to fair character and respectability the convicts were committed to their charge.

The interest which engrossed the mind of the shipowner, it may be presumed, was that of making the most of his vessels, and sending out a full cargo. No wilful oversight, still less any oppression, was perhaps imputable to the owners, the captains, or any one else: but still the fair profits of a good cargo could scarcely be expected to be sacrificed for the avoidance of any temporary inconvenience of convicts during a voyage; but somehow or other it happened that fever broke out, and that the mortality during the first voyages was dreadful—sometimes half the passengers were lost. I presume that the convicts were accompanied by officers of the Government; but the importance of ventilation was little known at that time, and even the King’s ships were ravaged by scurvy, dysentery, and fever. The appointment of special inspectors for this purpose solely would possibly have mitigated the evil to some extent, perhaps to an extent to warrant the expense; but I believe it would have protracted amendment, and left untouched a large mass of evil.

At length, however, the form of contract was altered: instead of the shipowners being paid per head on the number embarked, they were only paid per head on the number landed alive; so that the shipowners lost by every person who died on the passage. This form of contract changed the whole face of things.

Attention, or the efficient stimulus of interest, was directed to the cause of the mortality: ventilation and other appliances were sedulously attended to; the merchant, at his own proper cost, provided a medical officer to take charge of the convicts, and the remuneration of that officer was proportioned to the number landed alive. The result was that the frightful mortality disappeared, and the voyages have generally been effected with a higher degree of health amongst the passengers, or with less mortality, than would perhaps have occurred amongst the same number of the same class 448of persons living at large on shore.^[64] The East India Company have also, I am informed, adopted the same principle in the payment of the medical officers who have charge of the transport of their troops. The same principle has been directed to be applied by the Poor Law Commissioners in the contracts for the shipment of pauper-emigrants for Canada; and I am informed that complaints and the cause of them have proportionably disappeared.

I am informed by a friend who has taken a great interest in the subject of the transport of emigrants, that a year or two ago the principle was overlooked in the transport of emigrants by the Government agent. Some vessels were chartered and officered by Government officers of the highest character; but fever broke out in those ships, and there was severe suffering; whilst the voyages of ordinary emigrant-ships, commanded by common skippers—people of no rank or consideration, but placed under a contract which made their interest coincident with humanity—made their voyages as any person of practical experience and observance of the operation of different interests might have expected.

I believe that the practical application of the same principle of legislation, viz. the concentration of responsibility on those who may best find out and apply the means of prevention, would, in this important branch of industry, in which such numbers of young persons, and persons young in understanding and discretion, are employed, would be the most efficient preventive, and would, at the same time, give the owners and managers of collieries, at the outset, the least trouble, and ultimately a high degree of comfort.

I may here repeat, that it is observable in the district assigned to me, that the accidents from the breakage of rope are of rare occurrence in the deepest mines. The cost of a rope for the deeper mines is proportionably greater than for those of less depth. Not only, therefore, is the breakage of a rope a serious loss in itself, but the cause of still more serious loss from the interruption of the very extensive operations of the large mines to which they belong. It is a matter of fact, that greater care is bestowed on these expensive ropes and gearing, because it is the interest of those who are not always thinking about preventing remote accidents, but who are naturally and properly always thinking about immediate profits, to take care of them.

The responsibility implied by the proposed application of the principle for prevention, is a responsibility for exercise of care in their own business operations, which care can be exercised by them and no others, without interrupting and interfering with them in their business operations.

449

27.—Tables of Sickness in Prisons.

Table showing the Sickness experienced by 2,876 Prisoners committed to the Prison of Glasgow, from 1st January to 31st October, 1841, including 432 in Prison on 1st January, as compared with that of the East India Company’s Labourers, and the Highland Society’s Tables.

Age. Females. Prison of Glasgow. Males. Prison of Glasgow. East India Company’s Labourers. Highland Society. Prison of Glasgow.

Total No. of Prisoners. Daily average No. of Prisoners. Total No. of Days in Prison. Average No. of Days in Prison. Actual sickness, Prison of Glasgow. Average duration of Sickness per annum for every Female. Total No. of Prisoners. Daily average No. of Prisoners. Total No. of Days in Prison. Average No. of Days in Prison. Actual sickness, Prison of Glasgow. Average duration of Sickness per annum for every Male. Average duration of Sickness per annum for every Man. Age. Average duration of Sickness per annum for every Man, as shown by Tables of No. liberated on account of Sickness. Deaths.

Years. Days & Decimals. Days. Days & Decimals. Days. Days & Decimals. Days & Decimals. Years. Days & Decimals. M. F. M. F.

Decimals. Days. Decimals. Decimals. Years. Decimals.

Under 16 68 This cannot be given without immense labour, no register having been kept which readily shows the daily average of the various ages and sexes. 4,520 66·47 11 ·87 267 This cannot be given without immense labour, no register having been kept which readily shows the daily average of the various ages and sexes. 20,428 76·50 66 1·17 21 4·0

16 to 21 317 23,575 74·36 61 ·95 596 43,484 72·95 417 3·5 4·02 46 7·0 1 3 2

21 to 26 209 17,140 82·00 125 2·74 376 23,128 61·51 116 1·83 5·40 57 14·0 1 1

26 to 31 172 8,932 51·93 57 2·34 204 11,886 58·26 86 2·65 4·49 63 21·0

31 to 36 95 6,306 66·37 30 1·89 111 8,409 75·75 64 2·83 4·55 65 30·8 1

36 to 41 89 5,785 65· 21 1·5 93 4,813 51·75 12 9· 5·57 66 37·8 3 1

41 to 46 46 3,198 69·52 57 6·5 62 4,174 67·32 6 ·49 5·18 67 46·2

46 to 51 45 1,813 40·28 7 1·38 37 1,195 32·29 7 2·16 5·43 68 56·0

51 to 56 24 1,530 63·75 9 2·19 26 1,156 44·46 25 7·9 6·80 69 63·0 1

56 to 61 7 1,731 247·28 40 8· 12 612 51· 4 2·3 7·21 70 70·0

61 to 66 5 45 9· 7 238 34· 4 6· 10·24 1

66 to 71 2 362 181· 60 ·60 4 948 237· 9·93 1

71 to 76 1 14 14· 10·60

76 to 81 12·67

Total. 1,079 74,837 69·36 478 2·33 1,796 123,885 68·98 807 2·38 8^[65] 4^[65]

Dietary. Weight.—First-rate, 24 ounces; second-rate, 30 ounces; third-rate, 36 ounces.

Equivalent Total in ounces of wheaten bread.

Cost on an average 31 16d. per day, but taking the average of the last seven years, it cost exactly 2¾d. per day.

This is exclusive of fuel and cooking.

450

Table showing the Sickness experienced by 2,889 Prisoners committed to the Prison of Edinburgh from 1st January to 31st October, 1841, as compared with that of the East India Company’s Labourers, and the Highland Society’s Tables.

Age. Females. Prison of Edinburgh. Males. Prison of Edinburgh. East India Company’s Labourers. Highland Society. Prison of Edinburgh.

Total No. of Prisoners. Daily average No. of Prisoners. Total No. of Days in Prison. Average No. of Days in Prison. Actual sickness, Prison of Edinburgh. Average duration of Sickness per annum for every Female. Total No. of Prisoners. Daily average No. of Prisoners. Total No. of Days in Prison. Average No. of Days in Prison. Actual sickness, Prison of Edinburgh. Average duration of Sickness per annum for every Male. Average duration of Sickness per annum for every Man. Age. Average duration of Sickness per annum for every Man, as shown by Tables of No. liberated on account of Sickness. Deaths.

Years. Days & Decimals. Days. Days & Decimals. Days. Days & Decimals. Days & Decimals. Years. Days & Decimals. M. F. M. F.

Under 16 106 11·9 3,631 34·25 9 ·90 216 41·9 12,752 59·03 43 1·23 21 4·0

16 to 21 420 49·2 15,060 35·85 25 ·60 314 55·3 16,826 53·58 143 3·10 4·02 46 7·0 1

21 to 26 437 42·6 12,952 29·61 102 2·87 223 28·9 8,199 36·72 37 1·64 5·40 57 14·0

26 to 31 252 22·8 6,958 27·61 57 2·90 136 15·8 4,818 35·42 36 2·72 4·49 63 21·0

31 to 36 135 17·7 5,463 40·66 32 2·01 95 11·2 3,426 36·06 25 2·63 4·55 65 30·8

36 to 41 105 11·1 3,399 32·37 11 1·17 81 9·8 3,007 37·12 7 ·85 5·57 66 37·8

41 to 46 47 4·3 1,327 28·23 30^[66] 8·25 56 4·4 1,338 23·88 2 ·51 5·18 67 46·2

46 to 51 60 7·5 2,294 38·23 6 ·95 55 8·2 1,892 34·40 12 2·31 5·43 68 56·0 1

51 to 56 14 1·6 494 35·28 3 2·21 23 1·7 544 23·85 13 8·71 6·80 69 63·O 1

56 to 61 29 1·7 524 18·06 24 3·3 1,004 41·83 36^[66] 13·09 7·21 70 70·0

61 to 66 9 1·2 386 42·88 19 2·2 683 35·94 8 4·27 10·24

66 to 71 11 1·1 339 30·81 8 ·62 190 23·75 9·93

71 to 76 3 ·23 70 23·33 3 ·16 51 17· 10·60

76 to 81 5 ·43 130 26· 3 ·19 60 20· 3^[66] 18·25 12·67 1

Total. 1,663 173·36 53,057 32·49 275 1·9 1,256 179·67 54,790 43·62 365 2·4 4

451

Table showing the Sickness experienced by 5,408 Prisoners committed to the Prisons of Salford from October 17, 1840, to October 16, 1841, as compared with that of the East India Company’s Labourers, and the Highland Society’s Tables.

Age. Females. Prison of Salford. Males. Prison of Salford. East India Company’s Labourers. Highland Society. Prison of Salford.

Total No. of Prisoners. Daily average No. of Prisoners. Total No. of Days in Prison. Average No. of Days in Prison. Actual sickness, Prison of Salford. Average duration of Sickness per annum for every Female. Total No. of Prisoners. Daily average No. of Prisoners. Total No. of Days in Prison. Average No. of Days in Prison. Actual sickness, Prison of Salford. Average duration of Sickness per annum for every Male. Average duration of Sickness per annum for every Man. Age. Average duration of Sickness per annum for every Man, as shown by Tables of No. liberated on account of Sickness. Deaths.

Years. Days & Decimals. Days. Days & Decimals. Days. Days & Decimals. Days & Decimals. Years. Days & Decimals. M. F. M. F.

Under 16 58 12·93 3,353 57·81 4 ·44 542 89·52 32,690 60·31 69 ·77 21 4·0

16 to 21 279 37·52 13,701 49·1 372 9·91 1,072 155·2 56,671 52·86 623 4·01 4·02 46 7·0

21 to 26 264 31·96 11,681 44·24 239 7·46 935 118·2 43,166 46·16 293 2·4 5·40 57 14·0 1

26 to 31 185 26·69 9,748 52·7 409 15·31 590 78·07 28,507 47·67 182 2·33 4·49 83 21·0 1

31 to 36 120 17·33 6,329 52·74 316 18·22 371 43·39 15,847 42·71 135 3·1 4·55 85 30·8 2 1

36 to 41 90 8·49 3,238 36· 56 6·31 316 41·14 15,023 47·54 210 5·1 5·57 66 37·8 1

41 to 46 58 9·98 3,647 62·89 213 21·31 170 19·98 7,298 42·93 55 2·75 5·18 67 46·2 1

46 to 51 46 6·36 2,325 50·54 55 8·63 117 13·11 4,818 41·18 77 5·83 5·43 68 56·0 1

51 to 56 17 2·83 1,034 60·82 75 9·42 3,443 45·09 51 5·43 6·80 69 63·0

56 to 61 9 1·07 393 43·60 80 74·3 47 4·24 1,547 32·93 7 1·65 7·21 70 70·0

61 to 66 4 ·05 192 38· 29 55·13 20 3·08 1,127 56·35 83 2·67 10·24 1

66 to 71 1 14 14· 9 ·07 267 29·66 2 2·69 9·93 1

71 to 76 30 30· 4 ·27 101 25·25 10·60

76 to 81 12·67

Total 1,132 155·21 55,635 49·37 1,773 11·6 4,276 574·53 210,503 49·23 1,787 3·098 8 2

452

28.—Experience of Sickness in the Wynds of Edinburgh.

Table showing the Sickness experienced by 334 Persons, from 10th November, 1840, to 10th November, 1841, in some of the Wynds and Closes of Edinburgh, compared with the Sickness experienced in the Edinburgh Prison, by the East India Company’s Labourers, and by the Members of Benefit Societies, as shown in the Highland Society’s Tables.

Age. Females. Closes and Wynds. Prison of Edinburgh. Males. Closes and Wynds. Prison of Edinburgh. East India Company’s Labourers. Highland Society. Closes and Wynds. Prison of Edinburgh.

No. of Persons. Actual Sickness, Closes and Wynds of Edinburgh Average duration of Sickness per Annum for every Female. Average duration of Sickness per Annum for every Female. No. of Persons. Actual Sickness, Closes and Wynds of Edinburgh Average duration of Sickness per Annum for every Male. Average duration of Sickness per Annum for every Male. Average duration of Sickness per Annum for every Male. Age. Average duration of Sickness per Annum for every Man, as shown by Tables of Deaths. Deaths.

Years. Days. Days and Decimals. Days and Decimals. Days. Days and Decimals. Days and Decimals. Days and Decimals. Years. Days and Decimals. M. F. M. F.

Under 12 12 98 8·1 6 21 3·5 1

12 to 16 19 244 12·8 ·90 21 49 2·3 1·23 21 4·0

16 to 21 19 112 5·9 ·60 19 98 5·1 3·10 4·02 46 7·0 1

21 to 26 18 273 15·1 2·87 7 77 11·0 1·64 5·40 57 14·0 2

26 to 31 23 215 9·3 2·90 16 133 8·3 2·72 4·49 63 21·0

31 to 36 12 133 11·0 2·01 17 70 4·1 2·63 4·55 65 30·8

36 to 41 30 199 6·6 1·17 19 287 15·1 ·85 5·57 66 37·8

41 to 46 9 84 9·3 8·25 13 393 30·0 ·51 5·18 67 46·2 1

46 to 51 11 477 43·3 ·93 15 243 16·2 2·31 5·43 68 56·0 1

51 to 56 5 81 16·2 2·21 5 152 30·4 8·71 6·80 69 63·0 1

56 to 61 10 71 7·1 ·00 9 385 42·7 13·09 7·21 70 70·0 1

61 to 66 5 56 11·2 ·00 5 321 64·2 4·27 10·24

66 to 71 1 0 ·0 ·00 2 82 41·0 ·00 9·93

71 to 76 2 365 182·5 ·00 3 251 83·6 ·00 10·60

76 to 81 1 35 35· ·00 18·25 12·67 1

Total. 177 2,443 13·8 1·9 157 2,562 16·3 2·4 2 3 4

453

29.—Suggested Form of Notification to Owners or Occupiers for the distribution of the Expense of permanent Alterations, and the avoidance of Overcharges on persons enjoying only portions of the benefit.

The Commissioners of Sewers appointed to superintend the execution of the Act of Victoria, passed for the protection of the public health, which requires that every inhabited tenement shall be provided with proper means of drainage, and cleansing, and the removal of refuse, have caused a survey to be made of the houses and tenements in—[court or street, as the case may be]. On this survey it appears that your house, with others in the same place, are without the requisites required by law; that they are without proper sewers, without drainage from the house, and without water or proper means for the constant removal of night-soil, or conveniences for cleansing.