in 1838-39, one in 29; in 1831, in
the Old Town alone, one in 22. In Glasgow, according to Dr. Cowen, {106}
the average has been, since 1830, one in 30; and in single years, one in
22 to 24. That this enormous shortening of life falls chiefly upon the
working-class, that the general average is improved by the smaller
mortality of the upper and middle-classes, is attested upon all sides.
One of the most recent depositions is that of a physician, Dr. P. H.
Holland, in Manchester, who investigated Chorlton-on-Medlock, a suburb of
Manchester, under official commission. He divided the houses and streets
into three classes each, and ascertained the following variations in the
death-rate:

First class of Streets. Houses I. class. Mortality one in 51
,, ,, ,, II. ,, ,, ,, 45
,, ,, ,, III. ,, ,, ,, 36
Second ,, ,, I. ,, ,, ,, 55
,, ,, ,, II. ,, ,, ,, 38
,, ,, ,, III. ,, ,, ,, 35
Third ,, ,, I. ,, Wanting --- ----
,, ,, ,, II. ,, Mortality ,, 35
,, ,, ,, III. ,, ,, ,, 25

It is clear from other tables given by Holland that the mortality in the
_streets_ of the second class is 18 per cent. greater, and in the streets
of the third class 68 per cent. greater than in those of the first class;
that the mortality in the _houses_ of the second class is 31 per cent
greater, and in the third class 78 per cent. greater than in those of the
first class; that the mortality is those bad streets which were improved,
decreased 25 per cent. He closes with the remark, very frank for an
English bourgeois: {107}

"When we find the rate of mortality four times as high in some streets
as in others, and twice as high in whole classes of streets as in
other classes, and further find that it is all but invariably high in
those streets which are in bad condition, and almost invariably low in
those whose condition is good, we cannot resist the conclusion that
multitudes of our fellow-creatures, _hundreds of our immediate
neighbours_, are annually destroyed for want of the most evident
precautions."

The Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Working-Class contains
information which attests the same fact. In Liverpool, in 1840