COMPARATIVE MORTALITY. 47 



benefits of his discovery. Here also, you will again observe, that 

 an Act of the Legislature is the crowning event. I have said that 

 I am arguing on the assumption that our unhealthy occupations 

 ought to be dealt with by legislative measures. I am accordingly 

 adducing historical evidence of the efficacy of well-directed sani- 

 tary legislation, while I am, at the same time, seeking to impress 

 upon you the desirableness, and even urgency, of your representing 

 to the Legislature such considerations as will satisfy it that fresh 

 and more cogent measures are needed. The beneficial effects 

 resulting from such measures are constantly brought under our 

 attention. I select one out of a multitude of instances. One of 

 the household regiments the Foot Guards was found to have 

 more deaths from consumption than prevailed among the soldiers 

 of the Horse Guards. The former had thirteen deaths per 

 thousand, the latter seven. The Army Sanitary Commission 

 appointed to inquire into the case, reported, that the cause of 

 the discrepancy was a deficiency in the breathing space allowed 

 to the former. The defect was no sooner rectified than the 

 abnormal death-rate disappeared. 



Taking the whole of the occupations, to whose condition 

 I have specially directed your attention, I find, that twenty-six 

 of these, in every hundred, die of consumption ; while the pro- 

 portion of deaths from that disease among the general population 

 is only twelve in the hundred.* 



It is a matter of history that this long-continued State educa- 

 tion, in its reference to national health, culminated on the 1st of 

 June 1774, when Lord Howe achieved the all-decisive victory 

 which gave to Britain the supremacy of the seas. On that 

 memorable occasion, for the first time in the annals of our naval 

 engagements, perfectly healthy crews, numbering in all seventeen 

 thousand two hundred and forty-one, went into action against 

 the more heavily armoured and manned fleet of the enemy, 

 but with this difference that the enemy's crews were less 



* As this 12 per cent, among the general population includes all deaths 

 from consumption arising from the unhealthy occupations referred to, it 

 would be necessary in order to institute a fair comparison to exclude the 

 latter. The result would then show. a still greater disparity, as the rate 

 among the general population would then be reduced.to ten in the hundred 

 at the outside. 



