Fe 
‘‘ TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 159 
_ On the Mortality of Lancashire, §e., during the year ended at Midsummer 
1863. By Freperick Purpy, Principal of the Statistical Department, 
Poor Law Board, and one of the Honorary Secretaries of the Statistical 
Society. 
| This was a continuation of the paper which the writer brought before the 
- Section at Cambridge. The cotton famine was felt in several of the Lancashire 
' unions through a marked increase in pauperism at the beginning of 1862. It 
increased till the Midsummer following, when the distress had assumed most 
serious proportions, which continued to augment still more rapidly up to December, 
when the maximum of destitution was reached ; thence to Midsummer last it has 
steadily declined, leaving, however, in the unions principally affected, a rate of 
auperism which is between three and four times their normal ratio. The deaths 
in Lancashire during the year ended Midsummer were compared with the average 
of the three years ended at Midsummer 1862. The average was 61,263; last 
year’s deaths 64,828, being an increase of 3565, or 5:8 per cent. No attempt 
was here made to correct the figures for the increase of population. A similar 
comparison was made for three contiguous divisions—Yorkshire, where the deaths 
were respectively 46,454 and 49,955, being an increase of 5501, or 7°56 per cent; 
the rate of increase was here larger than in Lancashire,—the Northern division, 
deaths 25,499 and 26,876, which showed an increase of 1377, or 5:4 per cent., very 
close to the Lancashire rate of increase,—and the North Midland division, deaths 
26,578 and 25,181, which showed a decrease of 1397, or 5:3 per cent. 
Limiting the inquiry to the principal cotton manufacturing unions, properly so 
called, a group of sixteen was formed of the most distressed. The two first belong 
to Cheshire, the others to Lancashire. They are the unions of Stockport, Maccles- 
field, Wigan, Bolton, Bury, Chorlton, Salford, Manchester (with Prestwich), Ashton- 
under-Lyne, Oldham, Rochdale, Haslingden, Burnley, Blackburn, and Preston. 
The average number of deaths in the three years was 43,152, and the deaths in the 
year ended Midsummer last, 43,951, that is to say, an increase of 799, or 1‘9 per 
cent., as compared with the average. But it was found, on correcting the numbers 
with respect to the increase of population, that the ayerage should be 42,353, the 
deaths for the year ended Midsummer last, 41,574; this then exhibited, instead of 
an increase, a decrease of 779 deaths, or 1°8 per cent. 
The sixteen unions were arranged in three sections, as in the Cambridge paper. 
Section A. contained 7 unions, which at Midsummer 1862 were least pauperized ; 
the increase of pauperism as against 1861, was at that time 34 per cent. in the 
lowest burthened, and 100 per cent. in the highest. It was shown, by compari- 
son of the deaths in the year ended Midsummer 1863 with the average of the 
three preceding years, that Wigan, Chorlton, and Oldham had increased 8-7, 13-9, 
and 16-9 per cent. respectively ; that Macclesfield, Salford, Bolton, and Bury had 
decreased 5:0, 0:9, 2:2, and 4:1 per cent. respectively. 
Section B. consisted of 4 unions; the increase of pauperism at Midsummer 1862 
varied in this section from 120 to 145 per cent. The deaths in Manchester (with 
Prestwich) had increased 2:7 per cent. The others had decreased : Rochdale, 6-6 
per cent.; Burnley, 16-0 per cent. ; and Haslingden, 1°6 per cent. 
Section C. was formed of 4 unions; the pauperism had increased from 283 in 
the lowest union to 458 per cent. in the highest. Stockport had increased in 
deaths 12-0 per cent., and Ashton-under-Lyne, the most distressed union in the 
whole district, judging by the numbers on the books of the relieving officers and of 
the Relief Committees, 3-9 per cent. 
In the Preston union there was a decrease of 8°7 per cent. in the deaths. This 
union felt the distress earlier, and till it was surpassed by Ashton, heavier than 
any other. Last autumn typhus fever prevailed at Preston. Dr. Buchanan, the 
Government Inspector, who visited the district, reported the fever as “the steady 
follower on famine,” and gave, it may be remembered, a very gloomy account of 
the physical depression of the unemployed operatives generally; yet in the very 
year of this fever, which disease soon disappeared, there were 256 less deaths in 
the union than on the average of the three preceding years. Blackburn, also a 
very distressed union, shows a slight decrease of mortality. Liverpool, though 
