492 bepoet— 1879. 



in Sheffield, the average age at death was only 34, the same as among rollers, 

 though the former are enlisted in the prime of life, are well fed, housed, and 

 clothed, and have easy work, while the latter live under very trying conditions. 

 During the past five years 2004 persons have been buried in Sheffield without any 

 certificate from a properly qualified medical man as to the cause of death. This 

 is done, no doubt, in accordance with law, but it is undoubtedly a law which calls 

 loudly for amendment. Another great defect in our sanitary legislation is the 

 want of a registration of disease. An epidemic has often made considerable pro- 

 gress in the town before the Sanitary Authority becomes aware of its existence, 

 the first intimation of which may be the return of the death of some victim. The 

 great and laudable energy displayed in getting children into school nowadays 

 renders it imperative that the master should be aware where the infective diseases 

 exist, and the brothers and sisters of children suffering from such disease should be 

 rigidly excluded from school until there is proper certification that they can return 

 without danger to themselves or others. It is a cruel and unjustifiable thing to 

 compel children to come to school, and, as at present, take no precaution to see 

 that their life or health is not the penalty. Indeed, the schooling arrangement 

 should be in other respects also supervised by proper medical authorities, seeing 

 that a School Board has such power for good or evil over the physical health of a 

 large part of the population in the tender years of growth. The lighting, venti- 

 lation, and warming of the schoolroom, the construction of the seats, the colouring 

 of the walls, the age for schooling, and the hours of attendance, are all alike 

 subjects on which every School Board should have the advice of skilled and ex- 

 perienced medical men. The hygiene of the sight of school children is in itself an 

 all-important subject not to be lightly considered. The common employment of 

 rough opaque glass for schoolroom windows, by which much light, so necessary 

 for life, is excluded, and any accommodation of the eyes for distant vision during 

 school hours is prevented, cannot be too earnestly deprecated. By means of 

 gymnastic exercise much might be done to promote the bodily vigour of the 

 children. It should be impressed on every child that the most important know- 

 ledge it can acquire is how to maintain the body in health and vigour. This is a 

 necessary condition for the acquisition of a sound education and for the full en- 

 joyment of life. It is to be hoped that the time is near at hand when hygiene 

 will be a compulsory subject in every school, and that at least as much time will 

 be devoted to the study of the living body, and how to maintain it in health, as is 

 given to the study of dead languages and of inert matter. Sickness is the fruitful 

 parent of poverty and crime. The miseries it entails are worse than war or 

 famine; its victims are infinitely more numerous. But there is reason for antici- 

 pating that the great increase in the value of fife, and the steady decrease in mor- 

 tality which has been witnessed even withiu a comparatively short time, will be 

 more marked still in the future, as our knowledge and scientific methods of re- 

 search become perfected. 



2. On the Savings of the People as evidenced by the Returns of the Trustees' 

 ■and Post Office Savings Banks. By Professor Leone Levi, F.B.G.S., 8rc, 8rc. 



In my last report to Mr. Bass, M.P., on the earnings of the labouring classes, 

 including labourers and artisans, their total amount in 1878 was estimated at about 

 422,000,000/., of which 350,000,000/. was in cash, and 72,000,000/. in board, lodging, 

 clothing, and other perquisites. The wages were somewhat higher in 1878 than in 

 1866, when I made a similar estimate, though considerably lower than in 1872 and 

 1873. Yet the total amount of earnings was not greater, as the stagnation in 

 trade reduced the number of labourers and the number of days they were actually 

 earning wages. The difference in wages to the working men of the United Kingdom 

 between prosperous and bad times was upwards of 50,000,000/. per annum; and it 

 is interesting to ascertain how far our labouring classes have as yet learned to set 

 aside something for a rainy day. In the three years from 1871 to 1873, when 

 wages rose at least twenty per cent., and in some cases forty and fifty per cent., the 



