° 
1798.] 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
WAS farprized at peruling in your 
Magazine of laft month a letter from 
Mr. Wood af Shrewfbury, complaining 
of the feverity with which, in my ‘ Di/- 
fertation on Parith Workhoufes,” lately 
publithed at the requelt of the Society for. 
the promotion of the arts, manufactures, 
and commerce, I have pointed out what 
‘Appeared to me two important errors in 
his * Account of the Houfe of Indujflry 
at Shrewybury’ and, by way of reta- 
liation, acculing me likewife of an error 
equal in magnitude to either of his own. 
In noticing thefe inaccuracies I did 
not mean to be fevere; nor can I, evei 
now, trace any feverity upon a re-peru fa] 
of the objeétionable paragraph. Mr. 
Wood’s pamphlet, I have uniformly 
acknowledged, is pofleffed of much general 
merit; and it by no means requires the 
feeble affiftance of my commendation to in- 
duce the public to value it as it deferves. 
It is impoffible, however, to perule this 
pamphlet with minute attention without 
deducing the extraordinary concluficn, 
that the poor at Shrewfbury are fupported 
upon terms incomparably lower than they 
can be in any other part of this kingdom, 
where a diet equally liberal is allowed 5 
and that their mortality durmg the firit 
month of infancy, is contradictory to the 
eftablifhed laws of nature, and incon- 
ceivably lefs than what occurs in any 
other part of the world: for, we are toid, 
that out of ninety-one children born in 
the Houfe of Induitry at the time of Mr. 
Wood’s writing, not one had died within 
the firft month from its birth. Iam not 
the firft perfon who has been attonifhed at 
this extraordinary affertion; and I only 
repeated what the Rev. Mr. Howlett had 
long before fufpeéted, when I took the 
liberty of doubting whether fome miftake 
had not arifen in the ftatement, from the 
deaths of fome infants having been omitted 
to be regiftered by the fecretary. ‘To ren- 
der this doubt the more prebable I ttated, 
from authorities to which I duly referred, 
a fhort eftimation of the comparative mor-' 
tality of infants in many other places. 
In the Pays de Vaud, in Switzerland, 
the healthie& couptry in Europe, if not 
in the world, the proportion of infants 
dying within the firft month, I obferved, 
is one in fifty: in the fouthern provinces 
of France rather more than one in 
fifty: in the generality of houfes of 
Induftry in Norfolk and Suffolk, one 
in between fix and feven; and in the 
London work-houfes one in five: And 
yet in the howe of Intufiry at Shrewfbury, 
eut of mivety one children forming the 
Mr. Good in reply to Mr. WPood on the Poor. 
Ale 
total number born there at the time of Mr. 
Wood’s writing, ot an individual, we 
are told, had perithed within this moit 
fatal period!!! In every other ftage of 
life, from one month to maturity, frora 
maturity to old age, the mortality evinced 
‘is in no inftance outrageous to general ex- 
pectation, and experience: and, although 
Mr. Wood appears hurt at my having 
adopted the term ** mzracislous,”’ I cannot 
avoid repeating, that if the above be 
actually true, ‘it is a circumftance fo 
inconiiftent with what is related of the 
proportional mortality of the poor at the 
fame place in every other {tage of life, 
an event fo totally repugnant to the com- 
mon laws’of nature in every place, that 
it can fearcely be fuppofed to occur but by 
a miraculous interpolition of Providence 
in favour of the Shrewfbury inftitution.”” 
But’ Mr. Wood himifelf feems, at 
length, attonifhed at the exiftence of fo 
marvelicus a pienomenon; and although, 
when quefioned upon this fubject by Mr. 
Howlett, he declared (fee p. 85 of his 
pampalet) that “*he could not, upon the 
firidicft enguiry, find any mittake;” he! 
now conteffes the probability of his error, 
and aflerts, that ‘* it is very poflible the 
fecretary may have omitted reciftering 
one or more deaths.” It would have beea 
more fatistactory ftiil, however, if he 
had favoured us in his fetter with a 
ftatement of the mortality that has oc- 
curred within the fame period of infancy 
fince the publication of this truly extra~ 
ordinary account. ! 
But I pafs on to the confideration’ of 
the other inaccuracy which I noticed, and 
which Mr. Wood is vet defirous of juf- 
tityine: that, I mean, relating’ to the 
inconceivabie and altogether unrivalled 
cheapnefs with which the poor in the 
Shrewfbury Houle of Induftry are faid to 
be provided with, avery judicious and 
libera} diet; and whicn is ftill fated at 
the very low rate of 1s, 63d. for each 
weekly. Perfuaded as T was that the 
diet here allowed, could not poffibly be 
purchafed at the price thus {pecified, I 
endeavoured to calculate from Mr, Woeod’s 
own ftatement of the aggregate number 
of refident paupers, and the aggregate 
amount which they annually coft for pros 
vifions, what mutt neceffarily, and nu- 
merically be the weekly expence of each. 
In domg this, however, [found no {mall 
deoree of difficulty, for there is no one 
year in which both thefe very ufeful data 
make any appearance together. Thus, 
for the year 1790 the average zumber of 
poor is afferted, But not the expence for 
provifions ; while, on thé contrary, for 
the year 1794, we have a table- for the 
vias EX PEME 
