An essay on the means of insurance against the casualties of sickness, decrepitude, and mortality: comprising an article reprinted from the Westminster Review (No. XVIII) for April 1828, with additional notes and corrections / [Anon].

  • Chadwick, Edwin, 1800-1890
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the means of insurance against the casualties of sickness, decrepitude, and mortality: comprising an article reprinted from the Westminster Review (No. XVIII) for April 1828, with additional notes and corrections / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    For this purpose the Doctor put a variety of questions, to ascertain the earliest age at which women of the poorer classes marry,—the number of children they produce in a given period, —how many of those children may be expected to die within a given period, and of what diseases,—at what period of life married women among the labouring classes are the most prolific, —at what time they cease to bear children,—what is the influ¬ ence of the occupations of the parents on the health of the off¬ spring,—what is the effect of locality, under the head of resi- upon evidence which could not, for the reasons stated, be present to their minds. ‘ I would observe, however, that on strict principle, neither criminals nor paupers can be entitled to or can be safely allowed as high a degree of com¬ fort as the lowest of the labouring classes. And had the average of ordinary sickness attendant upon the reduced scale of diet been greater instead of less, it may be submitted that the reduced diet ought, notwithstanding, to be enforced. It is highly satisfactory, however, to perceive from the evidence cited, and from other evidence to which it were unnecessary to advert, that to the health as well as to the morals the restriction to a simple vegetable diet is equally beneficial. By those good persons whose hearts are larger than their heads,—who, under the disastrously ambiguous word ‘‘poor,'^ con¬ found the independent labourers with the dependant paupers—who can see only^ the real or imagined privation before them—whose sympathies are boundless for the prisoner, be he robber or murderer—whose eyes see not, w'hose hearts therefore rue not, the sufferings of the honest who have been robbed, or of the relations of those who have been murdered;—by these well-meaning persons, as well as by those who profit by profusion and by misrepresentation, the display of the effects of the management, for which they are in some measure responsible, and'“the suggestion of the necessity of an alteration of the ordinary diets, will doubtless be received as a sug¬ gestion for a reduction of the diets and comforts of the labouring classes. A strict administration in all these cases, it will be found, only affects the comforts of the labouring classes, in the way of augmentation. The independent labourers, to whom the degrading appellation of “poor men is applied by their intended friends but real enemies, are as much entitled to the widest range of comforts which their means will enable them to obtain, as the rich men. But I do not see how it can be. reconciled to any sound principle of administration, that either paupers or felons should enjoy heavy dietaries with meat, whilst to a large proportion of the people of the three kingdoms even bread is a luxury. “ But why always the dearest grain? why white bread for the worst class of population — namely, felons —whilst soldiers live well on brown bread ? Why always, and at all events, bread ? Is bread everywhere a necessary article? I may ask in the words of a late eminent philanthropist? ‘ The bulk of the people in Scotland live on oatmeal; the labouring population of Ireland live not even on brown bread, but on potatoes. Are the Irish a puny race ?—Has the arm of the Highlander been found weak in war ?—Is the lesson to be held out to the great bulk of the population, that the food with which they are content is not good enough for indolent able-bodied paupers, or even for felons ?’