the recorded deaths from starvation are vastly more
numerous than in any other country. In 1880 the number for England is
given as 101. In 1902 the number for London alone is 34. This is, of
course, no adequate measure of the facts. For every recorded case there
will be a hundred unrecorded cases where starvation is the practical
immediate cause of death. The death-rate of children in the poorer
districts of London is found to be nearly three times that which obtains
among the richer neighbourhoods. Contemporary history has no darker page
than that which records not the death-rate of children, but the
conditions of child-life in our great cities. In setting down such facts
and figures as may assist readers to adequately realize the nature and
extent of poverty, it has seemed best to deal exclusively with the
material aspects of poverty, which admit of some exactitude of
measurement. The ugly and degrading surroundings of a life of poverty,
the brutalizing influences of the unceasing struggle for bare
subsistence, the utter absence of reasonable hope of improvement; in
short, the whole subjective side of poverty is not less terrible because
it defies statistics.

Sec. 7. Figures and Facts of Pauperism.--Since destitution is the lowest
form of poverty, it is right to append to this statement of the facts of
poverty some account of pauperism. Although chiefly owing to a stricter
and wiser administration of the Poor Law in relation to outdoor relief,
the number of paupers has steadily and considerably decreased, both in
proportion to the population and absolutely, the number of those unable
to support themselves is still deplorably large. In 1881 no less than
one in ten of the total recorded deaths took place in workhouses, public
hospitals, and lunatic asylums. In London the proportion is much greater
and has increased during recent years. In 1901 out of 78,229 deaths in
London, 13,009 took place in workhouses, 10,643 in public hospitals, and
349 in public asylums, making a total of 24,001. Comparing these figures
with the total number of deaths, we find that in the richest city of the
world 32.5 per cent., or one in three of the inhabitants, dies dependent
on public charity. This estimate does not include those in receipt of
outdoor relief. Moreover, it is an estimate which includes all classes.
The proportion, taking the working-classes alone, must be even higher.

Turning from pauper deaths to pauper lives, the conditio