151- REPORT 1877. 



incapable of maintaining themselves, — of children, of invalids, of the aged (for some 

 of the most remarkable instances of individual longevity are to be found in them), — 

 was far larger than in the healthy districts. He showed, comparing the healthiest 

 with the average districts, that the cost of excessive sickness and premature dis- 

 ability and death, including the consequent loss of productive labour, involved 

 throughout the kingdom an annual loss of over £14,000,000, even according to 

 that defective standard — a loss, I may observe, which has gone on uninterruptedly 

 to the present day ; for, notwithstanding all our wise sanitary legislation and 

 great expenditure on sanitary works, our annual percentage of excessive mortality 

 throughout the kingdom resulting from preventible disease has hardly been appre- 

 ciably diminished, so largely has population increased during that time in places 

 and under circumstances where no commensurate sanitary precautions had been 

 adopted. Indeed London has not had its rate of mortality diminished under the 

 costly mismanagement of the Metropolitan Board of Works. 



Mr. Chadwick, followed and aided by an ever-increasing proportion of econo- 

 mists, has thus more than modified — he has to a great extent reversed — the 

 practical conclusions to be drawn on the report of excessive sickness and mortality, 

 and has demonstrated the concurrence of the demands of economical prudence 

 with those of Christian duty on this important subject. But, further, he contended 

 that in an energetic and skilful population, freely allowed to obtain what they coidd 

 get more advantageously from other countries for what they could produce more 

 cheaply at home, the tendency of the demand for labour would be absolutely to 

 outstrip the ordinary growth of population. He predicted years before it occurred 

 thai very scarcity oi labourers in England, compared with the demand for them, 

 which made itself so much felt a few years ago in every branch of industry 

 (except perhaps the work of clerks among men, and g >vernesses among women) , 

 and which, though less pressing quite latterly, owing to the recent almost universal 

 depression of trade throughout the world, still presents a marked contrast to earlier 

 times, and keeps wages at a point, if slightly lowered of late in some branches, yet 

 in all immensely higher than the old standard. 



Dr. Farr, in his truly philosophical supplement to the 35th report to the Registrar 

 General in 1875. shows that as the death-rate rises so does the birth-rate, that the 

 christenings for Lend' n from L651 to 1660 were G4,000, while from 1601 to 1G70 

 (including the great plague) they were 100,000 in round numbers. He shows that 

 within certain limits this continues. But when these are passed and the death-rate 

 becomes excessive, as 32*6 per thousand in Manchester and 88 - 6 in Liverpool, then 

 the birth-rate recedes to 87'3 per thousand in Manchester and 37 - 6 in Liverpool, so 

 that but for immigration Liverpool would gradually be depopulated. 



It is curious that while the average number of living children in France is 

 under .'!, and in some communes even under 2i, per family, it was about 4i in 

 her two German provinces, Alsace and Lorraine. That distinguished economical 

 writer, the late M. Wolowski, mentioned to Mr. Chadwick the superior efficiency and 

 value of Alsatian labour as compared with French labour generally. It woidd 

 almost seem as if a large family, requiring acquisition of means to supply the 

 increased demands consequent upon it, acted as a stimulus to increased exertion ; 

 while a small family, requiring only conservatism to supply an unaltered demand, 

 permitted more stagnation. The larger families seem to have been chiefly found 

 among those who worked for wages, the smaller ones among the small land- 

 owners — the latter being less adventurous and energetic, but decidedly the more 

 self-denying and saving. The consequence of this state of things in France is 

 certainly remarkal >le. The population has remained for some time nearly stationary. 

 Indeed, particularly in years of war, as in 1854-1855, it has actually declined a 

 little, while it decreased in the two years 1870-71 together about half a million, 

 independently of the loss of Alsace and Lorraine. Still, since the commencement 

 of the century, it has decidedly increased, though more and more slowly. The 

 number of births per marriage, which at that time was 3-10, had gradually fallen 

 to 2-06 in 1808. Dr. Cros, in a paper in the ' Hygiene Publique,' on the " De- 

 population of France," remarks that even the actual small surplus of births over 

 deaths is entirely owing to the illegitimate births, as by the age of 20 only 1*92 

 per marriage would be living of those born in wedlock, i. e. less" than the number 



