Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report of the health of Liverpool, during the year 1863 / by W.S. Trench. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![on Liverpool with all the feurful violence which struck down the total industry of some other towns, it spread over large portions of our population a chronic pauperism, insuHicient to attract to its aid the princely liberality of the nation, but severe enough to deteriorate the well-being of the community. In those years the paupers supplied with relief by the Vestry were— Year. Total for Year. Average per Week. 1859 702,149 13,502 1860 695,747 13,379 1861 729,544 14,029 1862 909,085 17,482 1863 895,851 17,228 If we except the returns for 1863, we have here an instructive parallelism between want and death. In 1860, when death snatched only 25 in every 1000 of the whole popula- tion, the number of paupers requiring relief from the Vestry was 213,338 less than in 1862, when 30 of every 1000 of all the citizens sank into the grave* Even in 1863, though at first sight exceptional, the like coincidence is manifest, for during its last six months the claimants for relief were 426,708, or 10,898 more than during'the con-esponding period of 1862. This half-year's difference is equivalent to much more than its numerical equation, for it occurred when trade had begun somewhat to revive, and labourers to find work. It therefore showed that though the demand for labour had removed from the list of paupers the strong, the active, and the skilled, there yet remained a greater number of persons than for the same period in 1862 who required relief from the parish. But besides the paupers, who as a matter of right seek eleemosynary aid, there was in 1861,1862, and 1863, a vast amount of want in the families of those who are above that class. Strangers, also, and unskilled labourers from a distance tlocked to the town in the vain search of employment, increasing thereby the list of the indigent. Benevolence did not altogether neglect, though it went dila- torily on its mission of charity, to this crowd of wretchedness ; for in 1861 and 1862 there was a tension of sympathy for the manufcturer, and thousands of pounds were sent to other districts, while want, misery, and sickness abounded in our own streets. The third and the most urgent cause of tlie increased rate of mortality is to be sought for in local and physical defects in the sanitary condition of the borough. Of the registered deaths, 9810 occurred in the parish and 5447 in the out-townships, and the rate of mortality was therefore for the borough 33, for the parish 36, and for the out-toAvnships 29 per 1,000. Here, then, we are able, by comparing the relative sanitaiy position of the population of separate districts which are not only contiguous but under the same commercial influence, and the same munici])al regulations, to discover the operation of injurious agencies. They are such as constantly and anxiously occupy the attention of the Health Committee, viz., the number of poor, especially](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21970993_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
