The Press.
London, England, 1854-01-28 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

literally nothing to prevent speculation of this
kind: law allows it ; practice does not prevent
it; the regulations of burial clubs not only
tolerate but encourage it.
But the most effectual test which we can
apply is, after all, that with which the accounts
of mortality furnish us. In Dr. LYON PLAT-
/AIR'S report OR the unitary condition of
large towns in Lancashire it is stated that,
among the Manchester poor, out of one hun-
dred deaths, from sixty to sixty-five are thou
of infants under Ave years of age. Does this
arise from poverty ? No; for the rate of infant
mortality in Manchester, where wages are
high, exceeds, in the proportion of four to one,
that which prevails among the ill-paid agri-
cultural labourers of Dorsetshire. But is it
the consequence of local insalubrity ? It does
not appear that this insalubrity is excessive :
' among the wealthier class the average of life
is reckoned at thirty-eight years. But another
example may supply more conclusive proof.
In a town of tio,ooo inhabitants alluded to, but
not named, by Mr. CLAY, we have, among the
wealthy class, a loss of infant life amounting
to eighteen per cent ; among the workers, a
loss, under similar circumstances, of fifty six
per cent. ; or more than three of the latter fur
one of the former. Yet farther testimony is
forthcoming :

The" collector " of a burial club, mutaining upwards of
5,000 menders, furnished me in 1843 with an account of
the ages at death of 400 members of his society, being the
number removed by death during the three years and
three months immediately preceding the date of his re-
turn. From the statement thus given by the burial club
officer it appeared that tI4 per cent. of all the deaths re-
ferred to children under five years old. In a return sup-
plied by the secretary of another club it was shown that
the infant mortality was 64 per cent. !• Now, without
attempting to enter into intricate calculations in order to
show the grounds of my opinion, I may justly condole
that there is some highly objectionable influence operating
this result. The infant mortality of Preston, among the
working elms generally, as shown in the report referred to
in the note below, is about 06 per cent. of all the deaths
in that class. How does It happen, then, that in burial
clubs which by their rules exclude the entrance of infants
under eight weeks old, and then require sixteen weekly
payments before anything would be payable on death, the
clubs' show an excess of infant death of six or eight per
cent. over the rate of infant death among the entire class
of the labouring population ?
It appears that a certain small amount of
reform has been effected since '46. Medical
certificates are more regularly required, and a
check is thus sought to be imposed on the
neglect or cruelty of parents. But this pre-
caution has been unavailing. The medical
attendant of a charitable institution in Lan-
cashire, quoted by Mr. CLAY, supplies the
following statistics :

Patients admitted in one year (1817) 3,052
Of these above five years of age 2,711
' , ander five years
It would thus appear that, although one•half of all the
deaths in the town consists of children under bye years of
age, the Rroportiosi of those who become patients of the
only chantable medical institution in the place is only one•
eighth of that above five years. Of the cases under five
rare one in six proved fatal—of those above five years one
la 191 .. The difference between a mortality of one in
six and one in is too great to he accounted for on any
other supposition than that of the existence of great
neglect ou the part of parents.
With this statement of otorious evils we
close our present article. 4n another number
we shall point out more lin detail both the
extent of the danger and 'the nature of the
cure.