Human Physiology. 21 



tradesmen, and artizans, those under five years of age were 

 gentry, 18; tradesmen, 36; artizans, 55. 



Many taxes press most heavily on the poor; but the taxes 

 of disease and death most heavily of all The infant death- 

 rate of the tradesman is just double that of the gentleman; 

 that of the artizan is treble ! 



According to the town registers, if 100 of each class were 

 born at the same time 



Gentry. Tradesmen. Operatives. 



Born . . . 100 ... 100 ... 100 



There would remain 



at end of ist year ... 90 ... 79 ... 68 



end of 2nd year ... 87 ... 73 ... 57 



end of 3rd year ... 82 ... 61 ... 44 



So that at the end of 5 years the gentry would have lost 28 

 of their children, the tradesmen 49, and the operatives 57. 



A still darker shade must be added to this dark chapter. 

 On England, more than on any civilised nation, rests the sin 

 and shame of infanticide. All preventable death is murder, 

 though not all wilful murder. But great numbers of children 

 are wilfully, as well as ignorantly or carelessly, put out of 

 existence. Later, I shall have to recur to the destruction of 

 foetal life, the practice of which seems to have been rapidly 

 increasing in the two countries which consider themselves in 

 the van of religion, morals, and civilisation; but I must now 

 give some of the facts of infanticide. 



In Lincoln, some years ago, thirty gallons of laudanum were 

 sold every week enough to kill 6000 men. Dr. Playfair 

 says: " We have three druggists in one district of Manchester, 

 selling respectively five and a half, three and a half, and one, 

 in all ten gallons weekly; two of them testifying that almost all 

 the families of the poor in that district habitually drug their 

 children with opiates." A respectable druggist in Manchester 



