The Sun.
London, England, 1863-05-20 00:00:00

THE COTTON FAMINE.

The health of the people in the manufacturing
districts of Lancashire and Cheshire has naturally
been a subject of great anxiety to those who watched
the development of the distress which has followed
the cotton failure, for it was not forgotten that dur-
ing the period of the Irish famine Lancashire expe-
rienced a death-rate which looked as though she
herself were stricken with pestilence. In 1846 and
1847 provisions, in consequence of the failure of the
potato, were dear, and employment scarce from the
depression of trade. The starving Irish thronged
the quays of Liverpool and crowded the streets of
Manchester, or they were huddled together beyond
all experience in the poorest and dirtiest of neigh-
bourhoods. "Liverpool," said the Registrar. Gen-
eral, " has for a year been the hospital and cemetery
of Ireland." The deaths which in Lancashire, dur-
ing 1844 and 1845, averaged 45,993, rose in the
following year to 59,627, and in 1847 to 68,765 ;
hence, in 1846, they were nearly 14,000 in excess
of that which may be properly termed the normal
death-rate of the county ; but in the next year this
excess had risen to 23,000. In the two years ab ut
36,000 persons perished, who, if the sanitary condi-
tion of this district had experienced no deteriora-
tion, would have lived. Though the Irish immi-
grants and the Irish fever must be credited with
some portion of this terrible mortality, the Regis-
trar-General regarded indigenous and not exotic
causes by far the most active agents in its produc-
tion. The sufferings of the poor at that time are in-
dicated by the increased poor rate, which was then
regarded as very heavy, but which, in comparison
with the far larger expenditure of the present day,
now appears insignificant.

By the assistance of the tables of mortality
recently issued from Somerset House, a parallel can
be drawn between the death-rate during one year
of the cotton famine, with that which prevailed
during the Irish famine, in our great manufacturing
county. Taking the years ended with March, we
find that the deaths in Lancashire, in 1860-61 were
59,116, in 1861-62 they were 65,464, and in 1862 63
they were 63,694. These present a strong and a
very gratifying contrast with those we have just
been considering. It was not until the commence-
ment of the last three years which have just elapsed
that the distress in the north was suff ciently great
to attract the notice of Parliament. We see, how-
ever, that the deaths were only 4,578 in excess of
1860 61, a year of great manufacturing activity,
and that they were 1,770 below 1861-62. It will be
shown hereafter, when we limit the observations to
the cotton manufacturing unions, that the evidence
of their generally healthy condition is still more
remarkable. _ 4

Last autumn, when public attention had been
called to the marked decrease in the mortality
of some of the most distressed of the Lancashire
unions, the Registrar-General observed, with judi-
cious caution, that "It had been assumed as
obvious that if the death-rate in the distressed
districts does not exceed or falls below
that which has prevailed in times of pros-
perity, the relief obtained by the unemployed,
from public and private sources, has sufficed
to maintain them in health. The allow-
ance may or may not have been sufficient in
amount, but the returns of mortality furnish no
evidence of the fact ; they only show that eAtreme
consequences of famine have not yet been mani-
fested." It is reassuring to find the R9gistrar-
General with a whole winter's additional experi-
enca of the distress, the relief, and the death-rate in
the North, admitting, with some emphasis, " that
the legal provision for the distressed, and the spon
taneons liberality of their countrymen, have hitherto
sufficed to maintain the people in health."
There is another way of testing the Lancashire
death-rate, that is, by comparing it with that which
has ruled in a neighbouring county. The West
!tiding of York, during the three years under re-
view, has, with a few inconsiderable exceptions,
sustained an active industrial life; but the returns
do not tell of a more healthy state of her inha-
bitants, with relation to antecedent conditions,
than can be shown for the palatinate, with her
mills motionless, and half a million of her operatives

living upon the unwonted bread of charity. In the
West Riding, 1860-61, the deaths were 36,202; in
1861-62, they were 35.296; and in 1862.63, they
amounted to 37,725. The last year was in excess
of both the former ones—with respect to the first
by 1,523 deaths, and to the second by 2,429 deaths.
To explain the circumstance that the deaths in
Lancashire during the winter quirter last past
show a decline in number when compared with
the two corresponding quarters of 1861-62,
which decreement is not participated in by the
kingdom generally, it has been suggested that,
while England enjoyed au average amount
of health during the first term of the comparison,
Lancashire was in those two quarters more un healthy
than usual ; and that, in the common fluctuations of
disease, " more or less improvement of the public
health was to be expected." It appears to us that
this explanation may be read backwards. The eve
of recovery from an unusual amount of insalubrity
in any district appears to be but a bad commence-
ment for bearing up against a period of privation.
Instead of partially explaining the unexpectedly
moderate death-rate of Lancashire by referring it
to the ordinary fluctuations of disease, the fact of
the low mortality appears rather to render
the evidence stronger that this happy result is
principally the effect of the prompt, liberal, and
efficient aid which her operatives have received in
the day of their adversity.

When we analyse the returns, it is found that
considerable diversities exist among the unions.
Following the same line of comparison employed
in discussing the mortality of the county, the
Stockport union stows an increased death rate of
10.8 per cent., while the neighbouring union of
Macclesfield decreased 5.4 per cent. The winter
quarter at the former place was particularly un-
healthy. Starlet fever has been very prevalent
over the whole union.
In Lancashire the cotton manufacturing unions
which have been less fortunate in respect
of health than their neighbours are War-
rington, Ashton-under-Lyne, Oldham, Barton -
on-Irwill, Chorlton, and Chorley. The increase
in these districts ranges between 4 per sent, and
10 per cent. The more fortunate ones are Bolton,
in which the decrease is equal to 5.1 per cent.;
cant.
Blackburn, one of the most
H ,siiegden, 8.7 per cent.;
3
by far the largest decline,
namely,
Rochdale,aun
nr e
Ileyy ,whichlB' O
perh b
7.
3perecxen t.
distressed unions,3 6 per cent. ; Bury, 3.4 per
cent.
'
Manchester, 3.4 per cent., the falling off in the
number of deaths being there 253 ;
not least, Preston, where the rate has fallen
on of"i dbti:lit:tig
cent., or by 188 deaths. Prtaton has divide6d2wpitelli.
but
under the present mostvisi-
tation. s Ashton-under-Lyrae t o n- un
distressedder-Ly nue n
itohne
the
f autumn,
.fevet,he very rea-
tation. It was there, in
sonable alarm arose that the ood
warned by the earliest symeeprt'oms,
started on its fearful car.
sent down a spe-
cial have
board of health, and Toe Government,
poor vigorous
cial medical inspector
measures to. consult with the local
sufferers and to check the werespr
etaadk
oe [lf
theto relievefever ; the
with the guardians of the
48 persons died from the fever in spite of all efforts
Chen the disease stopped, and has not appeared
since, or elsewhere in the district. Though Pres-
ton and Ashton stand very much upon the same
level as to the distress of the operatives, judging of
that distress by the number who have come upon
the rates in both unions, yet we observe that their
sanitary condition has been discrepant. Preston
had 188 fewer, and Ashton-under-Lyne 135
more, deaths than in 1860-61 and 1861 62. Man-
chester, Salford, and Chorlton form, in point of
fact, one vast manufacturing and commercial
town. Hero too the labottr famine has witnessed

considerable differences in the death-rate. In the
first-named place there were 253 less deaths; in the
second the mortality was Duly 1 per cent. higher ;
but in Chorlton the deaths increased by 352, or
more than 9 per cant. But the figures before us
present another phase of the sanitary question—
the force of endemic maces upon mortality, irre-
spective of the economic condition of the inhabi-
tants of any place. The whole area of our large
port upon the Mersey, which is generally called
Liverpool, is, for the purposes of registration, divided
into two districts—Liverpool and West Derby.
These places contain a population of nearly 500,000
persons.
During the Cotton famine, Liverpool,
though it is the largest cotton port in Europe, has
suffered very little distress. What her merchants
have lost by the American war in one direction it is
shrewdly suspected they have made up through the
same cause in another. We should therefore hope
that the death-rate there would show at least as
favourably as in the unions where the industry of
half the people is paralysed. But what are the
facts 13 In 1860.61 the deaths were 12,420 ; in 1861-
62 they rose 1,600, being then 14,011 ; last year
they again rose 1,000; in exact numbers they were
15,041. In 18623, therefore, they were 21.9 per
cent. higher than in 1861, and 7.4 per cent, higher
than 1862. Contrast these figures with those we
have given above in exposition of the diminished
mortality of unions like Bolton, Rochdale, Hasling.
den, Burnley, Blackburn, 'Manchester or Preston,
where unemployed thousands have been maintained
by charity. The Liverpool death-rate in 1862-63
was 31 in every 1,000 of the inhabitants ; this is
fifty per cent. higher than the average rate for all
England, and nearly double that which Dr. Farr
has pronounced to be the natural rate of mortality
in this country.

The low rate of mortality which has generally
marked the cotton unions during .the distress has
been sometimes referred to the circumstance of the
mothers being able to give that necessary care to
their younger offspring, of which they are too often
deprived during full work in the factories. We
cannot venture an opinion upon the va'ue of this
explanation, the statistical evidenee to determine
the quest ion not being at present before the public;
but any cause acting largely upon the infant mor-
tality of our manufacturing districts must have
great influence upon the general death-rate. In
Lancashire, in 1860, which we take as the latest
year in which the deaths by age have been pub-
lished, our of every thousand deaths 441 were those
of infants under five years of age. If Lancashire
could be made as favourable to infant life as North
Wa.ee, for example, where the mortality under five
years is 312 per 1,000 deaths, the saving to the
county palatine would be equal to 6,000 or 7,G00
lives at those early ages. Here, then, is a broad
margin, where physical, social, and moral influences
may, under given, but not extravagant conditions,
be brought into play to eheck a frightful waste of
human life.

We cannot but think that very many of that mul-
titude of benefactors who came with generous
celerity to the rescue of the cotton workers in
their first season of trial, will read with lively plea-
sure the figures we have here adduced to prove that
an inordinate mortality has not aggravated the dis-
tress of Lancashire. The statistics of death afford
another proof of the sufficiency of the means be-
stowed upon the hungry and the naked. There
health has smiled on charity, and charity will not
readily forget the grateful reward of her first daunt-
less struggle with famine.