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down at the desk, to their sedentary life, in close, gas-lighted, unventilated countinghouses
and offices; in the case of other young clerks, to intense bodily fatigue,
their duties compelling them to be upon their legs about town nearly all day, without
regular hours or sufficient time afforded for meals; and in the case of both, to
unnatural and murderously late hours of business. The youthful frame cannot bear
all this with impunity.
14. Goldsmiths, Silversmiths, and Jewellers.—It is unfortunate that in the census
tables these are thrown into one group, for the character of the occupations differs.
All I can say about them, therefore, appears upon the tables. This is the more
unfortunate as we have a large number of persons in Islington following these occupations.
Altogether their deaths from phthisis, apoplexy, and paralysis are high, and
they seem to suffer disproportionally from kidney and liver diseases.
15. Bricklayers come vastly better off than the labourers who assist them ; they
are less exposed than the latter to some causes of disease, and especially to the
causes of phthisis. They show a seven years' death-rate of 675 per 10,000, or 96
per annum. Their expectation of life is 34 years. They seem chiefly to die from
acute and chronic diseases of the chest (excluding phthisis), the result of exposure,
and from miasmatic diseases, probably derived from their residences. They exhibit
a high proportion of fatal liver disease. The high proportion of heart disease is
probably the result, through rheumatism or bronchitis, of exposure to cold and we.t.
16. Schoolmasters.—Only a small proportion of these died, the expectation of life,
from our limited experience, being 34 years.
b. FEMALES.
The rate of mortality of females following industrial occupations cannot be estimated,
nor yet, fairly, the average age at death, in consequence of the imperfection of
the mortuary returns, which in the instance of married women do not in all cases specify
the occupation followed. The particulars as to the cause of death, as given in Table
XIV., are open to fewer crbjections on this score.
Dressmakers and Milliners appear to die to a large extent from consumption,
42 per cent, of the deaths being attributable to this cause. There is no difficulty in
associating this with the damage inflicted upon the health from excessive and late
hours of work in close, crowded, and confined rooms, together with deficient bodily
exercise. The large proportion of young persons following these occupations, who at
a later period of life are lost sight of in consequence of marriage will also —as in the case
of commercial clerks—partly account for the high death-rate from phthisis. They seem
unusually exposed to suffer from fever and other miasmatic diseaies. Needlewomen
suffer more from poverty, innutritious food, misery, and driifk. Their occupation,
as returned, both in the census tables and the mortuary schedules, is in numerous
instances probably only ostensible. Phthisis, bronchitic affections, and kidney diseases
point to the causes of disease I have enumerated, together with exposure. Three out
of the 57 deaths were of single women from puerperal fever, and one was from
syphilis. When it is recollected that we have but 71'2 women thus returned at the
census, and how small a proportion of women die thus in childbed, and how little
fatal a disease adult syphilis is there can be no difficulty in accepting the conclusion