658 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



wounded, thougli these, more than the killed, may determine the issue 

 of the war. 



Let me now tell of another loss of work and of money through 

 sickness and early death. In all the estimates I have yet referred to, 

 no account is taken of those who are ill or die before they are fifteen 

 years old. They are not reckoned as in the working -time of life, 

 though in some classes many thousands of them are. (In the domestic, 

 agricultural, and industrial classes of the Registrar-General nearly half 

 a million of them are included.) And yet the losses of work due to 

 sickness among children must be very large. Consider the time which 

 might be spent in good productive work, if it were not spent in taking 

 taking care of them while they are ill. Consider, too, the number of 

 those who, through disease in childhood, are made more susceptible of 

 disease in later life, or are crippled, or in some way permanently dam- 

 aged ; such as those who become deaf in scarlet fever, or deformed in 

 scrofula or rickets, or feeble and constantly invalid, so that they are 

 never fit for more than half-work, or for work which is only half well 

 done. These losses can not be counted, but they must be large ; and 

 there are others more nearly within reckoning ; the losses, namely, 

 which are due to the deaths of those who die young. If they had 

 lived to work, their earnings would have been more than sufficient to 

 repay it ; but they have died, and their cost is gone without return. 

 The mortality of children under fifteen in 1882 was nearly a quarter 

 of a million ; what have they cost ? If you say only £8 a piece, there 

 are more than £2,000,000 sterling thus lost every year. But they have 

 cost much more than this, and much more still is lost by the loss of the 

 work they might have lived to do. 



It is, indeed, held, I believe, by some that these things should not 

 be counted as losses ; that we have a surplus of population, and that 

 really the deaths of children, though they may be the subjects of a 

 sentimental sorrow, can not reasonably be regretted. I can not bring 

 myself to admit that such a thing should even be argued. I have 

 lived long in the work of a profession which holds that wherever there 

 is human life it must be preserved ; made happy, if that can be ; but, 

 in any case, if possible, preserved ; and no argument of expediency 

 shall ever make me believe that this is wrong. Indeed, I am rather 

 ashamed — even for the purpose I have in view — to use so low an argu- 

 ment as that of expediency in favor of the saving of health and of 

 life. I am ashamed of making money appear as a motive for doing 

 things for which sufficient motives might be found in charity and 

 sympathy, and the happiness of using useful knowledge ; but it seems 

 certain that these are not yet enough for all that should be done for 

 the promotion of the national health ; therefore, it seems well to add 

 to them any motives that are not dishonorable ; and so I add this, 

 that we lose largely not only in happiness but in wealth by the deaths 

 of these poor children. 



