TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 171 
throughout the period, with more or less violence: to these causes must be added 
many deaths from bronchitis and pneumonia. The registrar of the Hulme district, 
with reference to the great mortality there in the March quarter of 1858, remarks 
that “the operative classes have been compelled to economise their resources in 
every poacible way. This has led to an excessive overcrowding of the dwelling- 
houses amongst the poorer classes ; foravhere in some streets most part of the houses 
are uninhabited, in others there are as many as two and often three families in one 
house, badly ventilated and deficient in most sanitary requirements. To this I 
mainly attribute the increased mortality.’ It will be remembered, in connexion 
with the existing distress, that the deaths in the Macclesfield union are below the 
average. The registrar for the east district states that “very extensive sanitary 
improvements have been made in sewering and in paving streets and courts in the _ 
worst parts of the borough; and the cottages have been also much improved. 
Where these measures have been carried out the deaths have decreased.” The 
registrar of Wigan remarks, in regard to the June quarter, that “the deaths are 
very much below the average for the last five years.” He observes that “distress 
prevails greatly, and is on the increase;” but that, to some extent, it has been 
mitigated by iver subscriptions. The registrar of Walton-le-dale district, in the 
Preston union, states that there the “deaths are much below the average, which I 
think is accounted for by the almost total stoppage of the cotton-mills, the inha- 
bitants of the Walton district being chiefly etary sie ie Hai Pk It may. 
seem in some degree to account for the improvement in health amidst such distress 
if I add that the able-bodied poor in my district are employed in out-door labour.” 
The registrar of Preston remarks that “There are now upwards of 22,000 people 
out of employment, and entirely dependent on charity of the boards of guardians 
for support..... But it is gratitying to know that, notwithstanding so much 
| el the rate of mortality has not increased, but decreased.” The Registrar- 
eneral has made the following remark as to the sanitary condition of the north- 
western district, which comprises the union counties of Lancaster and Chester, 
during the quarter ended at June last :—“ It was noticed above that the depression 
of trade in the manufacturing district had sensibly affected the marriage returns; 
but happily it does not appear that the same cause acting in the opposite direction 
has feaied materially to raise the rate of mortality, and it cannot positively be 
asserted that it has produced that effect in any degree. England, as has already 
been mentioned, was generally rather healthier last quarter than in the same season 
of 1861; but the rate of mortality in Cheshire and Lancashire was, though in an 
inconsiderable degree, higher last quarter than it had been in the spring of the 
previous year. The difference was only between 2:408 and 2°417;” that is to say, 
an increase of nine in every 10,000 deaths. With respect to the increased mor- 
tality in Lancashire and Cheshire which the returns for the March quarter of the 
present year reveal, the Registrar-General had previously observed that “The 
registrars in certain districts refer the increased mortality, which these figures too 
plainly reveal, to scarlatina, measles, bronchitis, and pneumonia, which had been 
prevalent; and by some of them an opinion, which there is reason to fear may be 
too well founded, appears to be entertained that those complaints had found an 
active ally in the poverty and want which many of the unemployed thousands now 
suffer in the great seats of manufacture. Facts have been adduced to prove that 
in instances of great depression of trade, like that which recently occurred in 
Coventry, the mortality of children is reduced in consequence of the due amount of 
maternal care being bestowed on them which in more prosperous times is with- 
drawn by the important requisition of factory Jabour. is is within limits. 
Nursing, in straitened circumstances, may be better for children than fulness of 
good cheer without it; but when hard times are prolonged, and the small store 
that had been gathered in the day of full work is exhausted, the greatest amount of 
eas attention will not expel physical decline, sickness, or death itself from the 
welling. 
15. To whatever causes those marked diversities which the paper has shown to 
exist in the Lancashire and Cheshire unions between the pauperism and the death- 
rate during the present distress may be ultimately traced, it will be conceded that 
the mortality tables of that district are matters of the deepest import to boards of 
