The Sun.
London, England, 1842-04-11 00:00:00

1837-38..

1838-39
1839-40 " -ft

1 Excessof deaths '
in1839-40over
1837-1838 —.

Over 1838-39 . .

Thus more than half of the excess over the
deaths of 1838-9, and more than three-fourths
of the excess over those of 1837-8, consisted of
the deaths of children under five years of age.
That this increased mortality has not been.
general, but has been confined to certain h calities,
while, at the same time, there has been a di-
creased mortality in other parts of the kingdom,
appears from a given table.
The counties which there has been the
mortality, compared with
that of
greatest
s increase
arid e in
of
1833, are Lancashire, IN; otting-
al3erelB,
banish ire, West Riding of Yorkshire, Leices-
tershire, Cheshire, Gloucestershire, Northum-
berland, Durham, Derbyshire, and North Wales,
the combined increase of which alone amouts to
15,231, out of the total increase of 19,097.
The prevalence of such increased mortality in
those counties, which comprise the largest pro-
portion of manufacturing population, naturally
suggests that the cause may probably be found
in circumstances to which the manufacturing
classes have been peculiarly exposed. But
a further examination shows that not only has
the increase varied very much within those coun-
ties, but that there has even been a decreased
mortality in some of those districts which are
peculiarly the seats of manufacture.. Such has '
been the case in Manchester and Salford, Ashton,
Oldham, Stockport, and Leeds. Therefore,
though manufacturing distress cannot be excluded
from among the possible causes of increased mor-
tolity, care must be taken not to assign such mor-
tality to this one cause in an undue degree.
It appears from the evidence of the entries in
the register-books, and the reports of superin-
tendent registrars, that this increased mortality
is attributable chiefly to the prevalence of epi-
demics, especially of typhus and scarlet fever,
and that the districts of Chorley, Leigh, Wigan,
Burnley, and Blackburn, in Lancashire; Mac-
clesfield, Dewsbury, Pontefract, Nottingham,
Bingham, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Bangor, and Beau-
mania, are those in which these diseases have been
fatal to the greatest extent.
The peat increase in the number of marriages,
an increase mounting to 12,348; over those regis-
tered in the year 1837-8, compared with the
much smaller increase, amounting only to 3,246,
over those of the year 1838-9, confirms the state-
ment made in my second report, that the number
in 1837-8 must not be considered as an average
number, but that there was a deficiency in that
year attributable to the change in the law; many
marriages, as I was informed, having, under a
misapprehension of the object and effect of the
Act fin. Marriages, been solemnized immediately
before that Act came into operation. Of the in-
crease, amounting to 3,246, over the registered
marriages of the year 1838-9, more than half
may be regarded as the natural result of increased
population. It is calculated that the population
of England and Wales, at the middle of the
latter of the above-mentioned years of registra-
tion---namely, Jan. 1,183 w, exceeded by not less
than 225,000 the Population on Jan. 1, 1838 ; and
as the ordinary proportion pf marriages to popu-
lation is nearly 8 annually to every 1,090 persons,
more than 1,700 marriages may be ascribed to
the increase of the population; and the excess,
independent of such increase, will thus be re-
duced to little more than 1,500.
In the abstract of marriages, I have included
the numbers of4each sex married under twenty-
one years of age, which were 6,101 men and
17,909 women, being in proportion to the whole
number married 4.90 per cent. and 14.40 per cent.
respectively. This proportion is in a slight de-
gree higher than in the preceding year, when
the numbers were 5,628 men and 16,414 women,
and the proportions 4.64 and 13.55.
The results exhibited by this table correspond
very closely with those stated in my Report of
the preceding year. I then mentioned, as the
counties in which early marriages appeared to
prevail, Hertford, Bedford, Cambridge, Hunt-
ingdon,
.Northampton,_ Leicester, and Essex.
The same, with the addition of Wiltshire, are
the eight counties in which, in the succeding
year, are the largest proportion of men married
under the age of twenty-one. The results are
also similar in these two years respecting those
portions 'of the kingdom in which early mar-
ritqcas have been most rare.
T have in my second Report oudeavoured to
throw light upon the state of education, with re- I
spect to writing, among the adult population of