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
fenced a death-rate which looked as though she
herself were stricken with pestilence. In 1846 and
1847 provisions, in coisequence of the failure of the
potato, were dear, and employment scarce from the
depression of trade. The starving Irish thronged
he quays of Liverpool and crowded the streets of
Manchester, or they were huddled together beyond
Al experience in the poorest and dirtiest of neigh-
bourhoods. " Live rpool," said the Registrar Gene-

the force of endemic causes upon mortality, irre-
spective
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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 ? In 1860.61 the deaths were 12,420 ; in 1861-
02 they rose 1,600, being then 14,011 ; last year
they again rose 1,000; in exact numbers they were
15,041. In 1862 3, 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
ti,ve given above in exposition of the diminished
mortality of unions like Bolton, Rochdale, Hashing.
den, Burnley, Blackburn, Manchester or Preston,
bwyheerheaunemployed
The Liverpool
Ltlaiovuersappd ools e haveeat been
h.rate minaintan ied
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
depnved during lull work in the factories. We
eqn not venture an opinion upon the va'ue of this
explanation, the statistical evidence to determine
the question not being at present before the public;
but at y 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, out 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
Wales, 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 7,000
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 check a frightful waste of
human lite.

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.