, the
average longevity of the upper-classes, gentry, professional men, etc.,
was thirty-five years; that of the business men and better-placed
handicraftsmen, twenty-two years; and that of the operatives,
day-labourers, and serviceable class in general, but fifteen years. The
Parliamentary reports contain a mass of similar facts.

The death-rate is kept so high chiefly by the heavy mortality among young
children in the working-class. The tender frame of a child is least able
to withstand the unfavourable influences of an inferior lot in life; the
neglect to which they are often subjected, when both parents work or one
is dead, avenges itself promptly, and no one need wonder that in
Manchester, according to the report last quoted, more than fifty-seven
per cent. of the children of the working-class perish before the fifth
year, while but twenty per cent. of the children of the higher classes,
and not quite thirty-two per cent. of the children of all classes in the
country die under five years of age. {108a} The article of the
_Artisan_, already several times referred to, furnishes exacter
information on this point, by comparing the city death-rate in single
diseases of children with the country death-rate, thus demonstrating
that, in general, epidemics in Manchester and Liverpool are three times
more fatal than in country districts; that affections of the nervous
system are quintupled, and stomach troubles trebled, while deaths from
affections of the lungs in cities are to those in the country as 2.5 to
1. Fatal cases of smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, and whooping cough,
among small children, are four times more frequent; those of water on the
brain are trebled, and convulsions ten times more frequent. To quote
another acknowledged authority, I append the following table. Out of
10,000 persons, there die--{108b}

Under 5-19 20-39 40-59 60-69 70-79 80-89 90-99 100 x
5 years
In Rutlandshire, a
healthy agricultural
district 2,865 891 1,275 1,299 1,189 1,428 938 112 3
Essex, marshy
agricultural
district 3,159 1,110 1,526 1,413 963 1,019 630 177 3
Town of Carlisle,
1779-1787, before
introduction of
mills 4,408 921 1,006 1,201 940 826 633 153 22
Town of Carlisle,
after introduction
of mills 4,738 930 l,201 1,134 677 727 452 80 1
Preston, factory
town 4,947 1,136 1