156 report — 1865. 



Chester, Birmingham ; now these three have grown from 92,000 together to a million 

 and a quarter. 



The ages of the people show the migration that goes on. A large number of 

 girls come into the towns as domestic servants, and a considerable proportion of 

 these return to the country to die. The male deaths, therefore, show the sanitary 

 condition better than the female deaths. 



It is commonly believed that while the male death-rate on the whole exceeds 

 the female, the female death-rate is the higher from puberty to middle life. The 

 truth is, that from 1851 to 1861 the female death-rate was the higher from puberty 

 to twenty, and about equal to the male from twenty to middle life. 



Among the causes of death it is remarkable that there are no more deaths to 

 population from cancer in unhealthy Liverpool than in all England. 



From lung disease, even including phthisis, there are more male than female 

 deaths. 



Brain disease prevails little in London, much in Leeds and Sheffield. 



Cholera and the cognate diseases are fatal in most of the great towns. As to 

 typhus, London and Bristol stand well. 



All these latter calculations are made for the registration districts, and not 

 for the boroughs. 



It is expected that this paper will appear at length in the ' London Statistical 

 Journal.' 



On the Admission of Illegitimate Children into Workhouses, as a means of 

 preventing Infanticide. By E. Vivian, J. P. 



Air. E.Vivian, of Torquay, one of the Magistrates for the County of Devon, who 

 committed Harris and Winsor on the charge of murdering the infant child of the 

 former near Torquay, read a paper founded upon the following resolutions, which 

 he intended to bring before the Board of Guardians of the Newton Abbott Union, 

 in which the offence was committed : — 



1. " That it is expedient that Boards of Guardians should be entrusted with a 

 discretionary power to admit illegitimate and, in special cases, legitimate children, 

 into the workhouses without their mothers also necessarily being inmates. The 

 expense to be borne, when practicable, by one or both parents. 



2. " That it should be the duty of Believing Officers and other parochial autho- 

 rities, to ascertain and place on record the parentage in all cases of illegitimate 

 birth, and to promote the obtaining of orders of affiliation, so to prevent the burden 

 from falling upon the ratepayers, or exclusively upon the mother, from lapse of the 

 statutory time in making the application." 



Under the present law, both these courses are prohibited. He believed that, 

 under the surveillance of the Poor- Law Board, the discretionary power thus given 

 to the Guardians would not be abused, and that the workhouse would afford a 

 refuge intermediate between a Foundling Hospital, -with all the encouragements 

 resulting from secrecy, and the cruelties now practised upon the unfortunate chil- 

 dren when put out privately to nurse. The mothers might be required to remain 

 in the workhouse, so long as their services were required, as nurses to their own or 

 other infants, when, at the discretion of the Guardians, they might resume their 

 employments, and recover their lost position, which is in most cases imprac- 

 ticable when burdened with the care of a child. 



A Statistical Review of the Police-recognised Drunkenness of the Metropolis. 



By R. Wilkinson. 



Partly by statistics already printed by order of the House of Commons, and 

 partly from information courteously communicated by the Chief Commissioner of 

 the Metropolitan Police, the author was enabled to present a view of the police- 

 recognized drunkenness of the metropolitan district, which embraces a radius of 

 about sixteen miles from Charing Cross. 



I. The apprehensions for drunkenness, and for drunkenness with disorder, during 

 each decennial period, with the annual averages, were as follows :--= 



