TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 165 
throwing a larger charge upon the possessors of permanent incomes; hut a consi- 
derable portion of the latter derive their income, or portions of it, from real pro- 
perty : it is therefore a proposal, so far as they are concerned, to increase the load 
upon their property, already unduly burdened by the local taxation of the country. j 
On the Pauperism and Mortality of Lancashire, By Frevrrtcx Purpy, F.S.S., 
Principal of the Statistical Department, Poor Law Board. 
1. To bring under the notice of the Section some of the statistical data which 
represent the pauperism and mortality during the six months ended at Midsummer 
last, in the cotton districts of Lancashire and Cheshire, is the object of the present 
communication. No attempt has been made in it to explicate those involved and 
complex causes which find their most significant numerical exponents in the mor- 
tality tables of the Registrar-General. The distress which has fallen upon the 
operatives of the cotton districts has not ceased, but is apparently deepening as the 
winter approaches. It would be futile to attempt anything like a satisfactory 
analysis of the phenomena before they cease, and while we are, therefore, neces- 
sarily ignorant of the extent and character of their ultimate development. Beyond 
this, it is essential to a scientific elucidation of the connexion which exists between 
distress and mortality in any place that the investigator possess both hygienic and 
local knowledge of the district under review—qualifications usually looked for in 
active and intelligent local officers of health. Though the writer can throw no 
light, by the aid of those qualifications, upon the facts hereafter noticed, he hopes 
that at the present time the important social questions which are involved in these 
statistics will constitute a sufficient claim upon the attention of the Section. 
2. It is too well known that when the labouring classes suffer from a collapse in 
trade or manufactures, the immediate effects upon very considerable numbers are 
a deprivation of the comforts and a diminution of the necessaries of life, with 
increased sickness and mortality following in the wake. Then pauperism emerges 
among families where, in prosperous times, it was never known, and becomes, 
under ordinary circumstances, not only the index, but the measure of distress. 
Pauperism, though it may indicate, ceases to measure distress when thousands are 
thrown out of their usual employment by the paralysis of a vast industry like the 
cotton trade of Lancashire. The lower and less thrifty class of operatives soon 
come upon the rates; the more provident and respectable families, after exhausting 
their means, keep off the rates till the last moment, or eke out their means by the 
aid of private charity, and so contrive for a time to avoid the pauper-roll. The 
distress, or rather the destitution, would be accurately measured if we knew the 
numbers aided by private charity, in addition to those who are relieved from the 
oor-rates. This, however, does not contemplate the deprivations which those 
abourers, who have honourably striven to live independently of charity, undergo 
in every form, before they reach that point where all their own resources are 
exhausted. 
3. Lancashire, during the last fifteen years, has been thrice visited with distress. 
In the year 1846-7 the expenditure for the relief to the poor throughout the 
country rose over the average of the three preceding years by £261,363, or by 83 
per cent. At the same time the deaths in the year increased over the average of 
the three previous years by 18,181, or 86 per cent. In the autumn of 1857 the 
district was suffering from the effects of what was frequently termed the “‘ Ameri-~ 
can crisis ;” and the distress continued to the midsummer following. The distress, 
as measured by the increase of pauperism, can, in respect of this period, be exhi- 
bited for the twenty-one unions of Lancashire and Cheshire, which contain the 
principal cotton manufacturing population of the kingdom. During the nine 
months ended at Midsummer 1858, the deaths in those unions rose 11:9 per cent. 
The numbers for each quarter are stated below, viz. :— 
Quarters ended 1856-7. Quarters ended 1857-8, 
WMecember =. «ease ss04/'se . 12,667 15,131 
A Re opal inet paul 14,302 15,603 
aLTING) ctstats © iy sonahe ASD al SK) SH 14,088 
Total ....se4 40,036 44,822... 
