AN ENQUIRY. 25 



iug mau becomiug improved, it is, judged by tlie 

 recent Departmental Committee's report, exceed- 

 ingly unsatisfactory, altbougli tlie sanitary or 

 mortality statistics sliow in their general aspect 

 an improvement over years ago. 



When we dive below or fully into these we 

 get at startling facts. 



Thus it happens that, to take for example a 

 town like York, we have 28 per cent, of the popu- 

 lation (according to Mr. Eowntree), and 30 per 

 cent, of the population of London (according to 

 Mr. Charles Booth), living in poverty ; whilst the 

 Director-General of the Army Medical Service, 

 in writing on recruiting in his report to the War 

 Office, dated 2nd April, 1903, quotes Sir Frederick 

 Maurice as stating that 60 out of every 100 of 

 the men offering themselves for enlistment in 

 the army are rejected as " physically unfit." 



It is alarming to be told that most of these 

 men are " labourers, husbandmen," and the like. 

 Who has benefited by the agricultural labourers 

 going to the towns? Clearly not and certainly 

 not agriculture; and it looks as though the 

 nation in this respect is storing up for itself a 

 rich harvest of disappointment. 



Pauperism. 



The question of pauperism must always appeal 

 to the agricultural social reformer. The fi.gure8 

 below apply not only to the rural districts, but 

 also to the urban districts. They relate to 

 England and Wales. 



