is work is persisted in, as is almost always the case,
in consumption, so greatly shortening the average of life of these
people. If the miners of this district are somewhat longer lived than
those of Cornwall, this is the case, because they do not enter the mines
before reaching the nineteenth year, while in Cornwall, as we have seen,
this work is begun in the twelfth year. Nevertheless, the majority die
here, too, between forty and fifty years of age, according to medical
testimony. Of 79 miners, whose death was entered upon the public
register of the district, and who attained an average of 45 years, 37 had
died of consumption and 6 of asthma. In the surrounding districts,
Allendale, Stanhope, and Middleton, the average length of life was 49,
48, and 47 years respectively, and the deaths from chest affections
composed 48, 54, and 56 per cent. of the whole number. Let us compare
these figures with the so-called Swedish tables, detailed tables of
mortality embracing all the inhabitants of Sweden, and recognised in
England as the most correct standard hitherto attainable for the average
length of life of the British working-class. According to them, male
persons who survive the nineteenth year attain an average of 57.5 years;
but, according to this, the North of England miners are robbed by their
work of an average of ten years of life. Yet the Swedish tables are
accepted as the standard of longevity of the _workers_, and present,
therefore, the average chances of life as affected by the unfavourable
conditions in which the proletariat lives, a standard of longevity less
than the normal one. In this district we find again the lodging-houses
and sleeping-places with which we have already become acquainted in the
towns, and in quite as filthy, disgusting, and overcrowded a state as
there. Commissioner Mitchell visited one such sleeping barrack, 18 feet
long, 13 feet wide, and arranged for the reception of 42 men and 14 boys,
or 56 persons altogether, one-half of whom slept above the other in
berths as on shipboard. There was no opening for the escape of the foul
air; and, although no one had slept in this pen for three nights
preceding the visit, the smell and the atmosphere were such that
Commissioner Mitchell could not endure it a moment. What must it be
through a hot summer night, with fifty-six occupants? And this is not
the steerage of an American slave ship, it is the dwelling of free-born
Britons!

Let