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13
ance for this, the general indications are, that while
the mortality of the better classes is not much
higher than the average death-rate for the whole
country, that of the labourer is excessive.
And then, again, the story told by the Workhouse
is very significant of the trying circumstances
of a City life among the poor. The results of the
last ten years show that of every 1,000 deaths in
the City, 145 are paupers who die in the City
workhouses. The classes that contribute most to
this aggregate are labourers, porters, messengers,
shoemakers, and tailors, among males; and domestic
servants, nurses, charwomen, needlewomen, and the
wives and widows of labourers and porters, among
women. Of a thousand males who die in the workhouses,
232 are labourers, 85 porters and messengers,
71 shoemakers, 63 tailors and cap-makers, 60 carpenters,
and 56 shopkeepers; and of a thousand
females who die there, 250 are domestic servants,
nurses, and charwomen, 100 are the wives and
widows of labourers, and 67 are needlewomen. So
that about half of all the workhouse deaths are
among five classes of persons, namely :—labourers,
servants and charwomen, porters and messengers,
shoemakers, tailors, and needlewomen; and
of these the first two contribute more than onefourth
of the total mortality. It is not easy to
determine in each of these cases the actual proportion