"While in Rodney Street and Abercromby Wards, with upwards of 30,000
inhabitants, the mortality is below that of Birmingham--the most
favoured in this respect of the large towns in England--in Vauxhall
Ward, with a nearly equal amount of population, the mortality exceeds
that which prevails in tropical regions. * * * * * 177 persons die
annually in Vauxhall Ward for every 100 dying out of an equal amount
of population in Rodney Street and Abercromby Wards."

Vauxhall Ward is where the greater number of inhabitants dwell in
cellars. Well may Dr. Duncan, in commenting on this difference of
mortality in Vauxhall Ward and Rodney Street, declare that it is a fact
"sufficient to arouse the attention and stimulate the exertions of the
most indifferent."

* * * * *

The average age at death in the following classes is made out from all
the deaths which took place in the Suburban, the Rural, and the Town
districts of Sheffield in the three years, 1839, 1840, and 1841:

Gentry, professional persons, and their families 47.21

Tradesmen and their families 27.18

Artisans, Labourers, and their families

A. Employed in different kinds of trade and handicraft 21.57
common to all places

B. Employed in the various descriptions of manufacture 19.34
pursued in Sheffield and its neighbourhood

Persons whose condition in life is undescribed 15.04

Paupers in the Workhouse 25.51

Farmers and their families 37.64

Agricultural Labourers and their families 30.89

In considering such statistics, the premature death of these poor people
is not the saddest thing which presents itself to us, but the unhealthy,
ineffectual, uncared-for, uncaring life which is the necessary
concommitant of such a rapid rate of mortality.

* * * * *

Since the publication of the preceding Essay, Mr. Pusey's "Poor in
Scotland," an abstract which has brought the evidence taken before the
Scotch Poor Law Commission within short compass, has been published.
This evidence is of a nature that cannot be passed by. We may think that
such details are wearisome, but we must listen to them, if we would learn
the magnitude of the evil. It is no use proceeding without a sufficient
substratum of facts. Tu