TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 185 



longed discussion in tlie 'Manchester Guardian.' It was occasioned by Mr. 

 Baxendell, who brought before the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society 

 certain statistics tending to show that the mortality of Manchester was not due to 

 any peculiar excess in the rate of infantile mortality. It was an old opinion that 

 in a manufacturing town like Manchester, the children are neglected while the 

 mothers are employed at the mills ; but Mr. Eaxendell showed that the deaths of 

 infants imder five years actually bear a less proportion to the whole number of 

 deaths than in any other of the large towns. This conclusion was somewhat 

 severely criticized by the Medical Officer of Health for Salford, and by Dr. Ran- 

 soms and Mr. Royston, of the Manchester Sanitary Association. The latter gen- 

 tlemen pointed out tliat the true mode of computation is to compare the deaths of 

 infants with the number of infants living, and the deaths of adults with the niun- 

 ber of adults. But even when calculations are made in this manner it still turns 

 out that the adult mortality of Manchester is as excessive as the infantile mortality, 

 Manchester mothers are thus exonerated from the charge of neglect, but at the 

 same time a most important and mysterious problem is left wholly unsolved. 



Our perplexity must be increased when we consider that Liverpool and Man- 

 chester, though both very unhealthy towns, are quite contrasted as regards situa- 

 tion and the kinds of employment they present. If we compare Liverpool with 

 other sea-ports, such as Bristol, Hull, and Loudon, it is found to exceed them all 

 considerably in mortality. Bolton, Bmy, Preston, Stockport and other towns have 

 more women employed than Manchester, comparatively speaking, yet they are 

 more healthy. The size of the town, again, is not the chief cause, for London, 

 tliough many times more popidous than any other to^^'u, is decidedly healthy. The 

 sites of the towns do not give tmy better solution of the difficulty, Loudon having 

 probably as unhealthy a site as any of the other large towns. 



I am sm-prised that more attention has not been drawn to the probable in- 

 fluence of a poor Irish population in raising the death-rate. It occurred to me 

 that tlie great towns which are most unhealthy agree in containing a large propor- 

 tion of Irish, and agree in nothing else which I can discover. To test this notion 

 I have calculated, from the census returns of 1861, the ratio of the Irish-born adult 

 population in all the larger towns of Great Britain. It then becomes .apparent at 

 once that the unhealthy towns of Liverpool, Manchester, Salford, Glasgow, Dun- 

 dee, &c. are all distinguished by possessing a large population of Irish, whereas 

 the healthy towns of Londoji, Birmingham, Bristol, Hull, Aberdeen, &c. have less 

 than 7| per cent, of adult Irish residents. Sheffield is the only remarkable excep- 

 tion to this induction. It might seem that, in order to confirm this conclusion, I 

 should show the death-rate in Dublin to be very high. On turning to the accounts 

 of the Irish Registrar-General, we find the Dublin rate to be low, but then we find 

 that the Dublin birth-rate is even lower in proportion. In fact the registry sys- 

 tem in Ireland gives results so much lower in every respect than those of Great 

 Britain, that we must either conclude the state of population to be utterly dif- 

 ferent there from what it is here, or we must suppose the registration to be very 

 incomplete. If after fiu-ther investigation this suggestion should be found to ex- 

 ;plain the high and mysterious mortality of many towns, it vdll, I think, relieve us 

 trom some perplexity, give us more confidence in sauitaiy measures, and point out 

 exactly where most attention is needed. 



The next two or three years will be a time of great interest to statisticians, on 

 account of the approaching census of 1871. We shall soon possess data which will 

 assist us in many investigations, and enable us surely to estimate many of the 

 changes in progress. 



There is only one suggestion concerning the census which it occurs to me to 

 make, namely, that it ought to be taken in as nearly as possible a 'uniform manner 

 in all the three parts of the Uuited Kingdom. It need hardly be pointed out that 

 the value of statistics almost entirely depends upon the accuracy and facility with 

 which comparisons can be made between different groups of facts, and a very slight 

 variation in the mode of making the enumerations of the census or tabidating the 

 results will lead to error, or else render comparison impossible. 



Reasons, the force of which I cannot estimate, have led to the establishment of 

 distinct registry-offices in Edinbm-gh and Dublin. Not only are the ordinary re- 



