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fe 2-5 'y 5
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
POVERTY:
ITS CAUSE AND CURE.
POINTING OUT A MEANS BY WHICH THE WORKING CLASSES MAY RAISE» •
THEMSELVES FROM THEIR PRESENT STATE OP LOW WAGES AND
CEASELESS TOIL TO ONE OF
COMFORT, DIGNITY, AND INDEPENDENCE;
AND WHICH IS ALSO CAPABLE OF ENTIRELY REMOVING, IN
COURSE OF TIME, THE OTHER PRINCIPAL SOCIAL EVILS
BY-
M. G. II.
“ The Diseases of Society can, no more than corporeal maladies, be prevented or
cuied, without being spoken about in plain language."— J ohn Sxuabt.Miu.
ILoniJon:
E. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH H0L30RN;
REMOVED FROM TEMPLE BAR.
1885.
[PRICK ONE PENNY.]
�INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
This little tract—made as small as possible in order that, by its mode
rate price, it may be within the reach of even the very poorest—is
written for the purpose of pointing out to the working classes, and
indeed to all other classes, the only true means of bettering their
condition. Its object is thoroughly practical, since the means we
advocate is simple, and requires no self-denial; but, on the contrary,
must cause a speedy improvement in the circumstances of the parties
adopting it. And, moreover, if its practice were universally recog
nized as a great social duty (as there is every reason to believe it will
be in time), it leads us to hope that, besides Poverty, the two other
great evils of our country, Prostitution and Celibacy, may be entirely
extirpated. We doubt not that at first it will be overwhelmed with
contempt and abuse, more especially by the “moralist;” but we
firmly believe that after such a calm examination of the subject as
its immense importance deserves, it will be acknowledged to be the
only means of escaping from the manifold evils under which we all, rich
and poor, now suffer. We have thought it necessary to precede the
communication of this means by a short explanation of the principal
cause of the present state of Low Wages, in order that the reader
may the more deeply feel that any scheme, benevolent or otherwise,
for the abolition of poverty, hitherto tried, must either be totally
powerless to effect its object, or, if successful, can only be so at the
cost of inflicting fresh evils, hardly less grievous than Poverty itself.
�3
POVERTY:
ITS
AND
CAUSE
CURE.
L
“The life of our working classes is worse than that of most of the
beasts of burden. They toil unremittingly, at a laborious, monotonous,
and in many cases a deadly occupation; without hope of advance
ment, or personal interest in the work they are engaged in. At night
their jaded frames are too-tired to permit their enjoyment of the few
leisure hours; and the morn awakens them to the same dreary day of
ceaseless toil. Even the seventh day, their only holiday, brings them,
fa this country, little gaiety, little recreation.................... Thus have
the poor to toil on, as long as their strength permits. At last some
organ gives way, the stomach, the eyes, or the brain; and the un
fortunate sufferer is thrown out of work, and sent to the hospital,
whilst his wife and family are reduced to the brink of starvation.
Often, the man, rendered desperate by his hopeless position, plunges
into drink, and gives himself over to ruin. At other times, the
Working classes, in a frenzy of rage at their infernal circumstances,
determine that they will have higher wages or perish. Hence result
the disastrous strikes, and the terrible social revolutions, that have in
recent times so often convulsed society. But they are vain; they are
but the blind efforts of men to do something or die, the fruitless
heavings of a man in a night-mare. The mountain of misery in
variably falls back upon their breast, with only increased pressure ;
and forces them, worn out by impotent struggles, to bear it quietly
for another little season.”
The above extract presents a sad, but too true, picture of the
*
manner in which thousands, nay millions, of our fellow countrymen
are forced to pass their lives. That it is not overdrawn, all belonging
fo the class referred to must be able to testify. Those who earn good
wages, and therefore save themselves and families from a personal ex
perience of the bitter miseries of poverty, doubtless know many less
favored by fortune, who have sunk and been trodden upon, in the hard
struggle for the bare necessaries of life which is going on around us.,
• From “The Elements of Social Science; or, Physical, Sexual,
ind Natural Religion.” E. Truelove, 256, High Holborn.
�4
Were we to ask, “ What is the cause, and what trie cure (if any) ot
¡this sad state of things ? ” how various and how contradictory would
be the replies. Some, and these would be of the richer classes, would
attribute it principally to idleness, drunkenness, or improvidence ;
recommending as its remedy education, the establishment of penny
Banks, sick funds, hospitals, &c. A large portion of th® middle
classes, viewing it from religious grounds, would declare it to be a
visitation-from heaven, sent for our spiritual good; and offer no Other
hope than that all -will be set right in the next world. Other®, of a
more practical turn, lay it at the door of over-competition, and re
commend emigration to the colonies as a cure. From the above,
opinions would vary, in proportion as we descend the Social scale,
through all the gradations ot trades unions, associated industry, socialism, change of laws, down to the extreme of red republicanism, and
a forcible division of the property of the rich amongst the poor.
'Now, in a work of this limited kind, it would be quite impossible
to examine in detail all these various schemes for the bettering of th®
state of the working classes. We must therefore content ourselves
with remarking that those among them that are at all practical, and
that - have had a trial, partial or general, have either been totally
powerless, or, at best, have only had a-very passing effect, in raising
the poor from the mire in which they are sunk. The main question
is, “ How can we raise wages ? ” All else is comparatively unim
portant—for as long as the present miserable rate of wages prevails
(a rate hardly sufficient to keep starvation from a man’s door), edu
cation, savings’ banks, and the like, are but mockeries. Even reli
gion itself is but a poor substitute for food and other necessaries.
No; if we could but raise wages to a fair rate, all the rest would
follow in time, even to the reformation of our criminals and prosti
tutes, who are for the most part driven into those wretched paths of
life Tor very bread.
Inorder to solve the question, “How can we raise wages?” we
must first look to the cause of the present low rate. This, it must be
evident to all, arises from the fact that the number of hands able and
willing to work greatly exceeds the capital for their employment at
good wages; in short, that the supply of labor is too large in propor
tion to the demand. When this is the case, wages will always be
low; and all efforts to raise them by such means as trades-unions and
strikes can only result in misery to both employers and employed«
We do not wish here to discuss the vexed subject of the combinations
of workmen against employers for the purpose of forcing up wages;
we only state a fact which few will dispute, namely, that this means
of bettering their condition is scarcely ever successful, but on the
contrary, nearly always leaves those who have taken part in it in a
worse condition than ever. Equally powerless for good is the plan,
once very popular, of fixing wages by law, at a higher rate than
would be warranted by the demand. Such compulsory interference
with the labor market was -.easily evaded.; but where enforced, it
always had the effect of throwing a number of men out of work. A
�ô>
moment’s consideration wiH'convince us that such must be the result.
Capital is a certain sum which is divided, in the form of wages,
amongst a certain number of men. If, without altering the relative
proportion between capital and labor, we forcibly raise the current
rate of wages, a portion only of the hands may indeed obtain that
advance, but at the cost of depriving the rest of their shares alto
gether; that is, throwing them out of work, to starve, or rely on
charity.
Brom the above considérations, we believe it will be acknowledged
that the only means of raising wages, without at the same time
causing a number of hands to suffer by it, would be to increase the
capital, and therefore the demand for labor, as compared with the
supply.
Now, from various causes, amongst the principal of which we may
mention the application of steam to land and sea travelling (that is,
railway and steam navigation), the rotation of crops and other im
provements in agriculture, &c., this country has increased in wealth
within the last fifty years to an extent and with a rapidity hitherto
unknown. And yet the working classes have by no means benefited
by all this increase of capital. It is quite as difficult for them to gain
an honest livelihood now as it was formerly. The very small weekly
snnas (six or eight shillings, for instance) which we find to have been
the current wages two centuries or so back, may seem to give the lie
to this; but such sums were in reality equal to double or treble their
present value, since food and rent were then not one-half or one-third
as high as at present. To convey some idea of the cost of living at
that period, we give the following table of the price of some of the
necessaries of life about the middle of the 17th century :—
Oatmeal, per quart .......... 1 Ad.
Beef and Mutton, per lb. ... 34d.
Beer, per gallon.................. 3d.
Bacon
„ ... 3^-d.
Eggs, per dozen.................. 3d.
Dutch Cheese
„ ... 2|d.
Sack of Best Coals ...........6d.
Best Salt Butter
„ ... 4d.
Weekly rent of a laborer’s
Biscuit
„ ... l^d.
Cotton Candles
„ ... 4d.
cottage.......................... 2d.
We have not given the price of wheaten bread, because in the middle
of the 17th century it had hardly come into general use, its place
being supplied by .rye, oatmeal, or buck wheat, whose price bore about
the same relative proportion to wages as wheaten bread now does.
Few will be bold enough to assert that wages have advanced in
greater proportion than this. We here speak of factory and other
trade operatives. The agricultural laborer has fared far worse, for
his wages have never considerably varied, during two centuries, from
10s. per week, notwithstanding the increase in the cost of the prin
cipal necessaries. As we should expect, we find his condition to be
worse than any other class of honest laborers, and by far inferior to
that of the condemned criminals. From Mr. Mayhew’s work we
learn that, whilst prisoners on hard labor are supplied with a weekly
allowance of 254 ounces of solid food—that being’the smallest amount
which (according to eminent medical men) can be given consistently
�6
with health and vigor—the English laborer can procure for himself
alter feeding his family, no more than an average of 140 ounces’
that is to say, the honest working man gets hardly more than half
as. 7n}ch
the crlminal, whose allowance is the smallest consistent
with health and vigor. In plain terms, a large portion of the most
hard-working of our industrial classes are half-starved.
If the case of male laborers is bad, doubly so is that of the females
lhe miserable condition of the sempstresses and slop-workers for
large shops is well known. Indeed, so truly appalling is the life they
lead, that instead of wondering at our streets being over-run with
prostitutes, we ought rather to feel astonishment that so many young
women should be found willing to prefer a virtuous life with sixteen
hours daily toil, and barely enough food to keep life in them, to the
degraded course of living on the streets: in which way, however
■shameful, they can at least generally procure an abundance of food.
After such facts as these, and they might be multiplied indefinitely,
let us- no longer boast of our civilization, our respect for religion our
wondrous progress in arts and sciences. Such only tend to dazzle us
and to hide with a gilded cloak the vast mass of poverty, over-work’
and vice, beneath. If all our glorious achievements cannot lighten
the sufferings of our fellow beings, then have they nothing accom
plished worthy of being called glorious.
We are now led to inquire into the causes which have prevented
the poorer classes from sharing in the great increase of wealth which
has taken place during the present century. Such, all our best
modern authors declare to be ovek-pofulation. We shall now
examine and explain what is called the “Law of Population.”
n.
One of the chief propositions of this law is the following:_ “All
animated nature has a constant tendency to increase beyond the
means for its support; ” that is to say, that, however great may be
the increase in the produce of the soil, it will always in old countries
be far short of the increase of living beings, supposing nothing were
to prevent their following natural instinct, and multiplying their
species unchecked. This applies equally to the human race, not
withstanding the power they possess of immensely augmenting the
produce of the soil above the natural yield.
Now, although man’s greatest power of multiplication is not exactly
known, it can be approached nearly enough for our present purposes.
It has been variously stated by different writers at the power of
doubling the numbers in the course of every 25 years, to as rapidly
as every 10 years. We will choose the more moderate rate, and
suppose population capable of doubling itself every quarter of a
century. Representing the present population as I,' at the end of
25 years it would be 2; in fifty years it would have again doubled, 4;
in another 25 years, 8; and at the end of the century, 16; that is, it
would be sixteen times as numerous as at first.
�1
As to the rate of increase of the produce of the soil, it is even more
difficult to arrive at a true result, than in the case of population; but
one thing we may be certain of, that it is very far indeed behind the
latter. For the sake of argument, however, we will suppose that the
produce of this island might be increased every twenty-five years, by
a quantity equal to what it at present produces. No sane man could
suppose a greater increase than this. Indeed in a few centuries it
■would make every acre of land in the island like a garden.
In the table here given we see these two rates contrasted :—
At the end of
Present 25
50
75
100
Time. Years. Years. Years. Years.
Increase of Food .....
1
2
3
4
5 &c.
Increase of Population ...
1
2
4
8
16 &c.
By this we see, that, were it possible for min to follow his greatest
rate of multiplication, at the end of a century he would exceed, by
more than three times, the food for his sustenance. But we know
that this would be practically impossible. A larger number of in
dividuals than could procure food would not be able to exist a week
after food began to run short; which, in the above example, would
occur after the lapse of the first 25 years. We therefore see that the
Mte of increase of the human race must be limited to the very
moderate rate of increase of food; all efforts to exceed that rate being
met by a falling off in the necessary supply of food, that is, by
famine. But though this must operate to repress excess of multipli
cation, were there no other checks; still, in point of fact, it is rarely
that this is the actual one. It is replaced (especially in more civilize^ ■
Countries) by a large variety of other checks. In describing these,
we shall for convenience divide them into two great divisions, the
Positive and the Preventive checks. The former consists of wars,
vice, disease, misery, and all other causes whatsoever which tend to
shorten the duration of human life. The latter, having no direct
influence on the deaths, operates in checking the births, and consists
in Sexual Abstinence or Celibacy, whatever form it may assume.
The priesthood, convents and nunneries in Catholic countries, the
large standing armies and navies of most civilized states, to whose
members marriage is generally impossible; above all, the class who
remain single from motives of prudence, common to all countries, but
most numerous in Switzerland, Norway, a few German States, and
our own, all have the effect of reducing the number of births, and
thus effecting, by opposite means, precisely the same end as is brought
about by the positive check, namely, keeping down the population to
the level of the food.
From the action of one or other of these checks man has had no
means of escape. He cannot choose apart from them: he can only
choose between them. If he follows natural instincts without restraint,
and brings more beings into the world than can find support (making
every allowance for increased yield of the products of the soil con
�8
sequent on improving knowledge of agriculture, &c.), the Stirplus
twist be cut off by disease, vice, or war; unless, indeed, a part of
these evils are warded off, as amongst the working classes of England,
by fearful efforts of industry, which reduce them to the condition of
mere machines. . On the other hand, if he exercise that prudence
and foresight which is peculiar to civilized man, and restrain himself
from begetting offspring until late in life (say thirty), he will by this
prudence procure for himself exemption to a very great extent from
the evils of over-population: but at the cost, besides an immense
amount of unhappiness, of introducing vicious habits.
Had we space we should examine in detail the condition of every
modern state in the world, and show how population is repressed in
each, either by the positive or preventive check; and how in pro
portion to the rarity of the one, we shall be sure to find the opposite
check in force. However, as such would lead us beyond the limits of
á small tract of this nature, we must content ourselves with reviewing
two or three countries where their action is most plainly seen
Amongst the most remarkable is Hindostán or India. Here marriage
is greatly encouraged, by the religious code, which makes the pro
creation of male children one of the greatest merits In the
ordinances of Menu (their Bible,) it is said, “ By a son, man obtains
a victory over all people; by a son’s son, he enjoys immortality; and
afterwards by the son of that grandson, he reaches the solar abode.”
Thus, marriage in India is considered a religious duty; and therefore
the preventive check operating little, the positive one must of necessity
supply its place. The people are so crowded that the most excessive
poverty prevails, and periodical famines have been always very Se
quent. Wars and pestilences have also at times carried off large
numbers. So much for the positive check falling on a race but lialfcivilized ; let us see its effect on a people much more advanced_ the
Chinese.
In China the population is enormous, being upwards of 300 millions
or about one-third of the human race. These vast numbers are
owing to the goodness of the soil and climate, the very great attention
that has always been paid to agriculture, and also the extraordinary
encouragements to marriage, which here, as in India, is considered a
religious duty; to be childless being held a dishonor. The preventive
check having therefore operated but little, the positive has been the
chief one. The most grinding and abject poverty prevails among the
lower classes, together with an untiring industry and hard work, (&
combination which finds a parallel perhaps in England alone).
Famines are very frequent, which sweep off vast numbers, and
infanticide is very general. It is in these modes rather than by wars
(which, till lately, have not been so destructive in China), that the
positive check operates. The check to population from vicious sexual
intercourse does not appear to be very considerable in China. The
women are modest and reserved, and adultery is rare.
From the above two examples of the operation of the positive
check, let us turn to the opposite extreme, where the preventive check
�9
or sexual restraint, is in greatest force, namely, in Switzerland, Nor
way, ^nd several of the German States. We shall borrow the words
of a weekly periodical, which sets forth in glowing terms the pros
*
perous and happy condition of the people of those countries. “ They
are certainly in advance of us in England,” says the writer. “ They
have almost destroyed pauperism; they have no ragged children, nor
ragged schools; the very boys have such regard for the rights of pro
perty, that the orchards are not enclosed, and cherry trees hang loaded
over the paths and roads, without being robbed by the pilferer, or
watched by the owner; not even watch-dogs are kept; each defends
the property of his neighbour as well as his own. The houses are
large and comfortable, two stories, and sometimes three, with nu
merous apartments; and in all the country there are no such cots
hovels as there are in England. The people are all well but simply
dressed; and even the few laborers that live on day wages are as well
dressed, and as comfortably fed and lodged, as their masters; and
work and live in hope that by their savings, which are weekly accu
mulating, they shall be able to purchase a little farm for themselves,
and spend the evening of their days in comfort.” We should remark
that the writer of the article from which the above is taken, attri
butes all these beneficial results to the system of “ peasant pro
prietors” there in force; that is to say, the possession by every
laborer of a piece of land of from five to ten or more acres, which is
Cultivated by himself and his family. Now we do not deny that such
may be a very useful means of raising the condition of the working
classes, giving them, as it does, a personal interest in their work;
still w® assert that alone it would be quite powerless to raise one jot
the poor from their miserable condition. In proof of this, we point
to the description of the state of the Chinese above given, which
shows the results of the above system (for there it is in greatest force,
nearly every peasant being a land-holder) when unaided by sexual re
straint.
The true cause of this prosperity we find in the custom of late
marriages and celibacy, more general in those countries than in any
other in Europe. Indeed, so much is it felt to be a duty to refrain
from wedlock until the man is able to maintain a wife and children,
that in some of the states alluded to, a law is enforced which requires
every person intending to marry, to prove before a magistrate that he
possesses the means of supporting a family; otherwise he cannot
marry. However repulsive such a law may seem to us Englishmen,
born and bred in an atmosphere of liberty, there can be no doubt that
it has effected in those countries all the improvements so remarkable
of late years.
We shall now turn to our own country, and endeavour to solve the
question put in th,e first part of this work, “ What are the causes
* “Family Herald,” for the week ending Feb. 22, 1857, article,
“The World but little known.”
�10
which have operated in cutting off the working classes of England
from their due share of the vast increase of wealth, which has takes
place in this country during the present century ? ” To thia we
boldly answer, early marriages and undue procreation; and in this we
are supported by all the greatest modern writers on the state of the
poor, to wit, Messrs. John Stuart Mill, Malthus, McCulloch, Dr.
Whately, and others too numerous to mention. We are so impressed
with the idea (which has descended to us from the ancient Hebrews),
that to rear a large family is a very meritorious act, that it may seem
startling when we lay at its door all the poverty, misery, and even
crime, so rife amongst the poorer classes. And yet from the facts
before passed in review, namely, the existence of universal poverty in
all those countries whose inhabitants do not practise sexual restraint,
and, on the contrary, its rarity in proportion as sexual restraint is
exercised, we can no longer shut our eyes to the conclusion, however
harsh it may appear, that the large families common amongst the
working classes have not only the effect of dragging down and
crippling the parents who have to toil for their support, but are also
the great cause of the present state of low wages, ceaseless drudgery,
and early death, consequent on an over-crowded population, and too
great a supply of labor in proportion to the demand. As long as the
number of hands seeking work is greater than the capital for their
employment at fair wages, it is vain to expect a rise in wages ; just
in the same way as when the population of a country exceeds the
food for its comfortable support, it would be impossible for all to get
enough sustenance.
III.
From what we have said in the preceding chapters, it may be
thought that we would wish to impress upon the poor and working
classes the duty of exercising moral restraint; that is, sexual ab
stinence. This is the view of the question taken by Mr« Malthus,
Dr. Chalmers, and many other writers; and no doubt whatever can
exist as to the power of this means, if it could be adequately prac
tised, to remove poverty and want in England. But, with all due
deference to such eminent authorities, we cannot refrain from ex
pressing our firm conviction that such a remedy for poverty is almost,
if not quite, as bad as the disease it would cure. Our endeavours
should be not merely directed to the removal of poverty, which is but
one form of human misery, but to the much larger question of a re
moval of all the causes of unhappiness. If we remove one only to
replace it by another as bad, then have we done no real good.
This subject—the evils of moral restraint or sexual abstinence
will require a little careful examination; as, although we all feel by
instinct that it is an evil, yet (from its very nature causing its victims
to hide their sufferings) it is much less capable of being clearly de
fined and put down in black and white, than is that of over-popula
tion, and its natural result—poverty.
In order the better to explain this subject, we shall borrow a few
�.11
passages from the work already quoted from, which, being written
by a student of medicine, who has evidently carefully studied this
branch of physiology, is entitled to our serious attention.
“It is most unwise,” he says, “ to suppose that our chief duty with
regard to our appetites and passions, is to exercise self-denial. This
quality is far from being at all times a virtue ; it is quite as often a
vice; and it should by no means be unconditionally praised. Every
natural passion, like every organ of the body, was intended to have
moderate exercise and gratification. ... At the present, in this
country, abstinence or self-denial, in the matter of sexual love, is
much more frequently a natural vice than a virtue; and instead of
deserving praise, merits condemnation, as we may learn from the
mode in which all-just nature punishes it. Wherever we see disease
following any line of conduct, we may be certain that it has been
erroneous and sinful, for nature is unerring. Sexual abstinence is
frequently attended by consequences not one whit less serious than
sexual excess, and far more insidious and dangerous, as they are not
io generally recognised. While every moralist can paint in all its
horrors the evils of excess, how few are aware that the reverse of the
picture is just as deplorable to the impartial and instructed eye.”
Those who require a more detailed account should consult the work
itself, where also are shown in vivid colors the hundred times more
ruinous effects resulting from the abuse of this part of our frames,
whether in the form of self-pollution, or that of prostitution, with the
melancholy list of diseases in their train ; both of which vices are
sure to be rampant wherever great obstacles to marriage exist.
Let us now view moral restraint or sexual abstinence from a lower,
but, to the majority, more influential point of view; that is, its effect
On the every-day comfort of the working man. It is here that would
be found the greatest difficulty in its adoption; for to a young
operative a wife is a necessity, if he would obtain any of those in
numerable small comforts, without which, however trifling they may
be thought by some, this life is hardly worth the having. Unable to
hire a cook or housekeeper, as is done by the more wealthy bachelor,
he would find it impossible to procure comfortable meals, nor even
any degree of cleanliness in his home, engaged as he is from morning
to night at work, probably far away from home. If the life of the
unmarried working man is comfortless and dreary, ten times more so
must be that of the unmarried woman after a certain age. Indeed,
amongst the poorer classes, such a person is quite in the way; she is
felt to be a burden to her family if she remain at home; and it is
hardly possible to support herself independently in lodgings, except
in the most miserable way. Thus, apart from any other reason,
marriage is felt to be an absolute necessity to both sexes, soon after
their reaching full growth, for the sake of that dearest of all things
to an Englishman, no matter how miserable it may be, a home. The
last remaining objection to moral restraint and late marriage, namely,
the deprivation, during the flower of man’s life, of the two dearest
objects for which human nature yearns—to love and be beloved by a
�12
wife and children—is too evident from the unhappiness it is universally
acknowledged to produce, to nc-ed illustration. Suffice it to say that
by this, the lot of the greater part of the middle classes, especially
the female portion, is rendered so comfortless and dreary, that many
of them would joyfully exchange their comfort and wealth, enjoyed
in solitude, for the poverty of what are called their less fortunate
neighbours, who at least are not deprived of all outlet for the social
and domestic virtues with which we are all endowed. Indeed, so ut
terly cheerless and miserable are the lives of most of that much to
be pitied section of the middle classes, called in ridicule “old maids,”
that we could not have the heart to wish to see the like state amongst
the poor, who, God knows, have as it is but very few pleasures.
“Is there no escape, then,” we are tempted to cry in despair, “from
the miseries inflicted on man by want of food, love, or leisure.”
“There is none,” cries the orthodox political economist; “none,”
repeats the disciple of Malthus; “none,” echoes the religionist. “If
such be the case then, if ordinary political economy, Malthusianism
of the ascetic school, religion itself, can do nothing but tear from us
all hopes of improvement in this world, and content themselves with
croaking resignation and patience under our afflictions: then will we
have none of them.” But we truly believe that human affairs are not
so hopeless, else should we have refrained from opening afresh the
many wounds which torment us. No, there is a means, the only
means, by which the evils of want of love, equally with those of want
of food and leisure (those three great necessities of our nature), may
in course of time, be entirely cured. It may appear at first sight,
perhaps, ridiculously unequal to such gigantic results, perhaps im
moral, perhaps unnatural, but we are confident in being able to meet
and refute any objections which can be made to it, and prove it to be
the only solution to the question nearest to the interests and happiness
of mankind—“Is it possible to obtain for each individual a fair share
of food, love, and leisure ? ”
IV.
The means we speak of, the only means by which the virtue and
the progress of mankind are rendered possible, is preventive sexual
intercourse. By this is meant, sexual intercourse where means are
taken to prevent impregnation. In this way love would be obtained
without entailing upon us the want of food and leisure, by over
crowding the population.
Two questions here arise: First, “ Is it possible, and in what way?”
Second, “Can it be done without causing moral and physical evil?”
In answer to the first question, we reply that there are several
means which have been adopted in this country, and more especially on
the continent, for the purpose of checking the increase of an already
numerous family without the exercise of perfect continence; but we
shall.chiefly recommend the following, as most of the others are more or
less iniurious to the health or nervous system of the parties adopting
�13
them. The following, however, has none of these objections, being
perfectly harmless, easy of adoption, and at the same time not in the
least diminishing the enjoyment of the act of coition. It consists in the
introduction of a piece of fine sponge, slightly soaked in tepid water,
and of sufficient size, in such a way as to guard the womb from the
entrance of the male semen during sexual connection. This might
be followed by an injection of tepid water.
By this means a fruitful result would be rendered Impossible. The
other means of preventing conception which have 1 een employed or
proposed, are, firstly, withdrawal before ejaculation; secondly, the
use of the sheath, or “French Letter;” thirdly, the use of injections
immediately after intercourse; and fourthly, the avoidance of con
nection, from two days before, till eight days after, the monthly
courses—at which time impregnation is far most likely to occur. Of
these, the two first are the most certain preventives: but the two
last, as well as the sponge, are the least open to objection in other
respects.
The second question was, “ Can preventive sexual intercourse be
used without causing physical or moral evils?” We firmly believe
that it can, or at least, that if there be any evil results, such would
sink into insignificance beside the present ones, which, arising as they
do from over-population, are otherwise irremediable. We think a
ealm consideration of the principal objection which may be urged
against the adoption of this invaluable means, will enable us to con
vince the reader that it is founded on error. We allude to the idea
that many entertain, of preventive intercourse being a kind of murder
or infanticide. In order to do this, we must pause to explain the
nature of the act of generation, which, though one of the simplest,
and at the same time most beautiful operations of nature, has often
been considered as a deep mystery and a subject never to be
mentioned.
The fixture human being is formed by the union, in the womb, of
two very minute cells, of opposite sexes, invisible to the naked eye,
called the sperm (male) and germ (female) cells, which is effected by
the act of copulation. When once this union has taken place, the
embryo, as it is then called, possesses life, which is as sacred as that
of the adult’s, and the destruction of which would truly be murder.
But to prevent this union from taking place is a totally different
matter. Before coition the seminal fluid is no more than a secretion,
like the saliva, perspiration, &c.; and consequently it is a total con
fusion of ideas to associate its loss with infanticide, as it cannot be
murder to destroy that which has never existed as life. Moreover,
the curious discovery has recently been made, that every time a
woman menstruates (that is, has the monthly illness), one or more of
the germ cells or eggs is spontaneously discharged, and, if sexual
coition have not previously taken place, it is wasted. So that, if we
go on the principle that to prevent a birth is murder, we might with
equal justice accuse those persons who remain unmarried during the
time of potence (namely, more than 30 years) of the murder of all
�14
the children who might have been bot~n, had they married. Far from
being murder, preventive intercourse is the only possible means of
preventing murder; for that is hardly too strong a word to apply to
the bringing into the world of such a number of beings as we know
could never find support should they all reach manhood. Let us see
if facts do not bear us out in this assertion. In this country, amongst
the poor, 53 in every 100, or more than one-half of the children who
are born, die in infancy. Now in spite of this large amount of mor
tality, those who survive to manhood, perhaps not more than one-third
of those born, still find it next to impossible to gain a livelihood.
What, then, would be the result, think you, were it possible, by im
provements of dwellings and other means of health, to save those
children from an early grave, and throw upon the already over
crowded labor market a triple number of hands? Famine.
Thus, if we know that, as at present, twice or thrice as many being#
are brought into the world as can by any possibility find food, instead
of a crime, would not preventive intercourse rather be the greatest
virtue we could possibly practise, since it would save nearly twothirds of our fellow-beings from the death by slow starvation, poverty, ■
or neglect, which is otherwise inevitable?
For the satisfaction of those who may feel timid in adopting any
thing which they suppose to be new, it will be as well to mention that
Messrs. Francis Place, Richard Carlile, Robert Dale Owen, Dr.
Knowlton, and the author of the Elements of Social Science, have,
in the journals or books edited or published by them, strongly re
commended the adoption of preventive intercourse. It is also openly
advocated by a number of the most eminent foreign writers, some of
them holding high positions in the universities of their respective
cities.
With regard to the extent to which it should be practised, that
must of course depend greatly on the present state of population of
the country, or of the class adopting it; but we believe we should be
near the mark in saying that, under existing circumstances, married
persons should in no ease allow themselves more than two children, at
least in this country. Indeed, considering the fearfully over-crowded
state of England, it would be a noble sacrifice on the part of married
persons to refrain from having any for the present, until the rate of
wages has somewhat risen.
*
The day will come, and soon too, we hope, when the having a large
family, far from being thought a virtue, as at present, will be looked
upon in its true light--that of a great social wrong; and although
this tract is more particularly addressed to the working classes, as
they are probably the greatest sufferers by the present state of things,
and the least aware of its true cause, we nevertheless believe limited
procreation ts be a duty equally binding on all classes, rich or poor.
Mr. Malthus, the discoverer of the great Law of Population, laid it
* Or until the price of the necessaries of life—as bread, house
rent, clothing, &c.—has fallen ; which, as we have before shown, is
practically the same as an increase of money-wages.
�15
down as a duty strictly binding on all, “ Not to bring beings into the
world for whom one cannot find means of support;” but what would
be the result of following that course? Why, to give the rich a
monopoly of those blessings, or rather those necessaries of life, love
and offspring, cutting off the poor from what is now often their only
solace. Instead of the above, we should rather say, “It is a sacred
duty for us all, by the use of preventive means, to limit the number
of our families, in order that we may not prevent our fellow beings
from obtaining their share of love, food, and leisure,” any one of
which is, in the present age of celibacy and large families, quite un
attainable without a proportionate sacrifice of the two others. .
Preventive intercourse, then, is the only means by which it i3 pos
sible for mankind to make any real or satisfactory advance in happi
ness; and were it to be universally practised, it could not fail to
cheapen food, raise wages, and remove the greater part of the vice
and disease for which, in spite of all our boasting, this country is
remarkable.
But although preventive intercourse is the main remedy for poverty
amongst the poor, and celibacy amongst the rich, there are some other
schemes which, tried with the above, would doubtless do much good.
Amongst the foremost is associated industry, that is, the system which
gives every working man in trade a direct interest in the success of his
labor, and a share of the profits, raising him from the condition of a.
mere machine to that of a kind of junior partner. In a similar
manner, there is no doubt that to raise the country laborer from his
present condition of a hired drudge, to that of an owner of land,
however small in quantity, would have a very beneficial effect in im
proving his state, moral and physical. This would require an altera
tion in the laws regarding freehold land, which now render its ac
quirement almost impossible for any but a rich man. However, as
such reforms are for the most part out of the reach of the class to
whom this work is addressed, and are, after all, of little consequence
compared with the duty of limiting procreation, we need not longer
pause to consider them.
In conclusion, we call upon all to throw away false prejudices, and
unite in the adoption of preventive sexual intercourse. By such
means the state of ideal happiness for which we all instinctively
yearn, may not be in time so unattainable; meanwhile, the working
classes can, by the practice of the above simple and harmless ex
pedient, very much better their condition with regard to wages: in
which it is vain to expect a rise as long as the supply of labor is so
great in proportion to the demand, as is the case in these days of
large families and over-crowded population. Working men! your
salvation is in your own hands. If you allow yourselves to turn
from it and lean solely upon socialism, red republicanism, and
trades’-unions, your condition is indeed hopeless; but we sincerely
believe that when once you learn the true remedy for your ills, you
will not be slow to adopt it: and by using every effort in your power
to Spread the knowledge of it amongst your fellow workmen, will
be the means of raising the class to which you belong, from the state
�16
of semi-slavery, ^ith ceaseless toil and scantv food, which is but too
commonly their lot, to one of comfort and Independence.
POSTSCRIPT.
The reader is earnestly requested to do all in his power towards
making widely known the contents of this tract. This he might do
with little or no trouble to himself, by lending it amongst his friends
or fellow workmen, or by leaving it on the tables of coffee-houses,
mechanics’ institutes, and other public places. It must be evident
that unless the duty of limited procreation be almost universally
recognized, any good effected by its practice in raising wages, will be
liable to be counteracted by the earlier marriages and increased pro
creation of those not adopting it.
The 22ndEdition, enlarged by the addition of a Fourth Part, of the
TpLEMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE; or, Physical, Sexual,
and Natural Religion. With the Solution of the Social
Problem. Containing an Exposition of the true Cause and only Cure
of the three primary social evils—Poverty, .Prostitution, and
Celibacy. By a Graduate of Medicine. Price 2s. 6d.; or in cloth 3s.
Post-free.
Upwards of 600 pages.
%
u
Opinions of the Press.
. . si)me respects all books of this class are evils; but it would be weakness and
criminal prudery a prudery as criminal as vice itself—not to say that such a book as
the one in question is not only a far lesser, evil than the one that it combats, but in
\??nse a
which it is mercy to issue and courage to publish.”—Reasoner.
.
. av?xnever risen from the perusal of any work with a greater satisfaction
thrni this. i Ur ^reatest hope is that it may get into families where the principles
w
inculcated by a parent, who will use his authority in the advice to both sons
and daughters, which should always accompany the reading of works like this. And
we are certain that in every case where it is read with care, there will be another
soldier gained to that brave band who are ever encircling the ramparts of bigotry
and ignorance.
**This book is the BIBLE OF THE BODY. It is the founder of a great moral
reform. It is the pioneer of health, peace, ami virtue. It should be a household Lar
in every home. head it, study it, husbands and wives Had you, had your parents,
read a book like this, a diseased, dwarfed, deteriorated race would not now be
wasting away in our country. By reading this wonderful work every young man may
preserve his health and his virtue. Some will say the disclosures are exciting or
indelicate—not so; they are true, and the noblest guide to virtue and to honour.
That book must be read, that subject must be understood, before the population can
be raised from its present degraded, diseased, unnatural, and immoral state. We
really know not how to speak sufficiently highly of this extraordinary work; we can
only say, conscientiously and emphatically, it is a blessing to the human race.”—
Ptepte's Paper.
“ Though quite out of the province of our journal, we cannot refrain from stating that
this work is unquestionably the most remarkable one, in many respects, we have ever
met with. The anonymous author is a physician, who has brought his special know
ledge to bear on some of the most intricate problems of social life. He lays bare to the
public, and probes with a most unsparing hand, the sores of society, caused by anoma
lies in the relation of the sexes. Though we differ toto ccelo from the author in his
views of religion and morality, and hold some of his remedies to tend rather to a dis
solution than a reconstruction of society, yet we are bound to admit the benevolence
and philanthropy of his motives. The scope of the work is nothing less than the whole
field of political economy
.. .
—The British Journal of Homoeopathy. January, 1860. 1 (Pub
lished Quarterly, Price 5s.)
London: K Truetx>ve, 256, High Holborn, W.O.
�
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Poverty : its cause and cure [...], by M.G.H.
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 16 cm.
Notes: Published anonymously. Publisher's advertisement for Elements of social science, 22nd ed., on p.16. Full title: Poverty: its cause and cure pointing out a means by which the working classes may raise themselves from the present state of low wages and ceaseless toil to one of comfort, dignity and independence and which is also capable of entirely removing in course of time, the other principal social evils. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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1885
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Social problems
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Birth Control
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6 iXz
POVERTY:
ITS EFFECTS ON THE
POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.
BY C. BRADLAUGH.
LONDON:
LUSTIN k CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET
and Watts & Co., 80, Shoe Lane.
BRICE ONE PENNY.
�“ Political Economy does not itself instruct how to make a nation rich* 1
but whoever would be qualified to judge of the means of making a nation ■■xroiiiu
rich must first be a political economist.”—John Stuabt Mill.
“ The object of political economy is to secure the means of subsistence
of all the inhabitants, to obviate every circumstance which might render
this precarious, to provide everything necessary for supplying the wants
of society, and to employ the inhabitants so as to make their several interests accord with their supplying each other’s wants.”—Sib Jambs
Stewabt.
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�POVERTY, AND ITS EFFECT ON THE POLITICAL
CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.
On one occasion in the world’s history, a people rose
searching for upright life, who had previously, for several
generations, depressed by poverty and its attendant hand
maidens of misery, prowled hunger-stricken and disconso
late, stooping and stumbling through the byways of existence.
A mighty revolution resulted in much rough justice and
some brutal vengeance, much rude right, and some terrific
wrong. Amongst the writers who have since narrated the
history of this people’s struggle, some penmen have been
assiduous and hasty to search for, and chronicle the errors,
and have even not hesitated to magnify the crimes of the
rebels; while they have been slow to recognise the previous
demoralising tendency of the system rebelled against. In
this pamphlet it is proposed to very briefly deal with the
state of the people in France immediately prior to the
grand convulsion which destroyed the Bastile Monarchy,
and set a glorious example of the vindication of the rights
of man against opposition the most formidable that can be
conceived; believing that even in this slight illustration of
the condition of the masses in France who sought to erect
on the ruins of arbitrary power the glorious edifice of civil
and religious liberty, an answer may be found to the ques
tion—“ What is the effect of poverty on the political condi
tion of the people ?”
In taking the instance of France, it is not that the writer
for one moment imagines that poverty is a word without
meaning in our own lands. The clamming factory hands
in the Lancashire valleys, the distressed ribbon weavers of
Coventry, and the impoverished labourers in various parts
of Ireland and Scotland, would be able to give us a defini
tion of the word fearful in its distinctness. But in England
poverty is happily partial, while in France in the eighteenth
century poverty was universal outside the palaces of the
nobles and the mansions of the church, where luxury,
voluptuousness, and effeminacy were regnant. In the seven
teenth and eighteenth centuries travellers in France could
learn from “ the sadness, the solitude, the miserable poverty,
the dismal nakedness of the empty cottages, and the starv
ing, ragged population, how much men could endure with
out dying.” On the one side a discontented, wretched,
hungry mass of tax-nroviding slaves, and on the other a
�4
rapacious, pampered, licentious, spendthrift monarchy. This
culminated in the refusal of the labourers to cultivate the
fertile soil because the tax-gatherer’s rapacity left an insuffi
cient remnant to provide the cultivator with the merest
necessaries of life. Then followed “uncultivated fields, un
peopled villages, and houses dropping to decaythe great
cities—as Paris, Lyons, and Bordeaux—crowded with
begging skeletons, frightful in their squalid disease and
loathsome aspect. Even after the National Assembly had
passed some measures of temporary alleviation, the distress
in Paris itself was so great that at the gratuitous distribu
tions of bread “ old people have been seen to expire with
their hands stretched out to receive the loaf, and women
waiting their turn in front of the baker’s shop were prema
turely delivered of dead children in the open street.” The
great mass of the people were as ignorant as they were
poor; were ignorant indeed because they were poor. Igno
rance is the pauper’s inalienable heritage. When the
struggle is for the means of subsistence, and these are only
partially obtained, there is little hope for the luxury of a
leisure hour in which other emotions can be cultivated than
those of the mere desires for food and rest—sole results of
the labourious monotonousness of machine work; a round
of toil and sleep closing in death—the only certain refuge
for the worn-out labourer.
Without the opportunity
afforded by the possession of more than will satisfy the
immediate wants, there can be little or no culture of
the mental faculties.
The toiler, badly paid and illfed, is separated from the thinker. Nobly-gifted, highlycultured though the poet may be, his poesy has no
charms for the father to whom one hour’s leisure means
short food for his hungry children clamouring for bread.
The picture gallery, replete with the finest works of our
greatest masters, is forbidden ground to the pitman, the
ploughman, the poor pariahs to whom the conceptions of
the highest art-treasures are impossible. The beauties of
nature are almost equally inaccessible to the dwellers in the
narrow lanes of great cities. Out of your narrow wynds
in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and on to the moor and moun
tain-side, ye poor, and breathe the pure life-renewing
breezes. Not so; the moors are for the sportsmen and
peers, not peasants; and a Scotch Duke—emblem of the
worst vices of a corrupt and selfish, but fast-decaying House
of Lords—closes miles of heather against the pedestrian’s
i
r
is
ii
Is
di
Ml
pi>
ijr
�5
foot. But even this paltry oppression is unneeded. Duke
Despicable is in unholy alliance with King Poverty, who
mocks at the poor mother and her wretched, ragged family,
when from the garret or cellar in a great Babylon wilder
ness they set out to find green fields and new life Work
days are sacred to bread, and clothes, and rent; hunger, in
clement weather, and pressing landlord forbid the study of
nature ’twixt Monday morn and Saturday night, and on
Sunday God’s ministers require to teach a weary people
how to die, as if the lesson were not unceasingly inculcated
in their incessant toil. Oh! horrid mockery; men need
teaching how to live. According to religionists, this world’s
hitter misery is a dark and certain preface, ‘‘just pub
lished,” to a volume of eternal happiness, which for 2000
years has been advertised as in the press and ready for
publication, but which after all may never appear. And
notwithstanding that every-day misery is so very potent,
mankind seem to heed it but very little. The second edi
tion of a paper containing the account of a battle in which
some 5000 were killed and 10,000 wounded, is eagerly pe
rused, but the battle in which poverty kills and maims hun
dreds of thousands, is allowed to rage without the uplifting
of a weapon against the common enemy. “ If a war or a
pestilence threatens us, every one is excited at the prospect
of the misery which may result; prayers are put up, and
every solemn and mournful feeling called forth; but these
evils are to poverty but as a grain of sand in the desert, as
the light waves that ruffle a dark sea of despair. Wars
come, and go, and perhaps their greatest evils consist in
their aggravation of poverty by the high prices they cause;
pestilences last a season and then leave us; but poverty,
the grim tyrant of our race, abides with us through all ages
and in all circumstances. Bor each victim that war and
pestilence have slain, for each heart that they have racked
with suffering, poverty has slain its millions whom it has
first condemned to drag out wearily a life of bondage and
degradation.”
The poor in France were awakened by Rousseau’s startling
declaration that property was spoliation, they knew they
had been spoiled, the logic of the stomach was conclusive,
empty bellies and aching brains were the predecessors of a
revolution which sought vengeance when justice was denied,
but which full-stomached and empty-headed Tories of later
days have calumniated and denounced.
�6
Warned by the past, ought we not to-day to give battle to
that curse of all old countries—poverty? The fearful miseries
of want of food and leisure which the poor have to endure
are such as to seriously hinder their political enfranchise
ment. Those who desire that men and women shall have
the rights of citizens, should be conscious how low the poor
are trampled down, and how incapable poverty renders them
for the performance of the duties of citizenship. So that
the question of political freedom is really determined by the
wealth or poverty of the masses; to this extent, at any rate,
that a poverty-stricken people must necessarily, after that
state of pauperism has existed for several generations, be
an ignorant and enslaved people.
The problem is, then, how to remove poverty, as it is only
by the removal of poverty that the political emancipation of
the nation can be rendered possible. It has been ascertained
that the average food of the agricultural labourer in Eng
land is about half that allotted by the gaol dietary to sustain
criminal life. So that the peasant who builds and guards
his master’s haystack gets worse fed and worse lodged than
the incendiary convicted for burning it down.
“ The rural population of many parts of England are, as
a general rule, half-starved. They have to toil like bond
slaves, with no leisure for amusement, education, or any
other blessing which elevates or sweetens human life; and
after all, they have only half enough of the very first essen
tial of iife. The working classes in the towns, are also
miserably paid, often half-starved; and are sweated to death,
in unhealthy sedentary drudgery, such as tailoring, cotton
spinning, weaving, &c.”
How can this poverty be removed and prevented ?
I quote the reply from one who has written most elabo
rately in elucidation of the views of Malthus and Mill:—
“ There is but one possible mode of preventing any evil—
namely, to seek for and remove its cause. The cause of low
wages, or in other words of Poverty, is over-population;
that is, the existence of too many people in proportion to
the food, of too many labourers in proportion to the capital.
It is of the very first importance, that the attention of all
who seek to remove poverty, should never be diverted from
this great truth. The disproportion between the numbers
and the food is the only real cause of social poverty. Indi
vidual cases of poverty may be produced by individual mis
conduct, such as drunkenness, ignorance, laziness, or disease ;
�7
but these and all other accidental influences must be wholly
thrown out of the question in considering the permanent
cause, and aiming at the prevention of poverty. Drunken
ness and ignorance, moreover, are far more frequently the
effect than the cause of poverty. Population and food, like
two runners of unequal swiftness chained together, advance
side by side; but the ratio of increase of the former is so
immensely superior to that of the latter, that it is neces
sarily greatly checked; and the checks are of course either
more deaths or fewer births—that is, either positive or pre
ventive.”
Unless the necessity of the preventive or positive checks
to population be perceived; unless it be clearly seen, that
they must operate in one form, if not in another ; and that
though individuals may escape them, the race cannot;
human society is a hopeless and insoluble rildle.
Quoting John Stuart Mill, the writer from whom the
foregoing extracts have been made, proceeds—
“ The great object of statesmanship should be to raise the
habitual standard of comfort among the working classes, and
to bring them into such a position as shows them most
clearly that their welfare depends upon themselves. For
this purpose he advises that there should be, first, an ex
tended scheme of national emigration, so as to produce a
striking and sudden improvement in the condition of the
labourers left at home, and raise their standard of comfort;
also that the population truths should be disseminated as
widely as possible, so that a powerful public feeling should
be awakened among the working classes against undue pro
creation on the part of any individual among them—a feel
ing which could not fail greatly to influence individual con
duct ; and also that we should use every endeavour to get rid
of the present system of labour—namely, that of employers
and employed, and adopt to a great extent that of indepen
dent or associated industry; His reason for this is, that a
hired labourer, who has no personal interest in the work he
is engaged in, is generally reckless and without foresight,
living from hand to mouth, and exerting little control over
his powers of procreation; whereas the labourer who has a
personal stake in his work, and the feeling of independence
and self-reliance which the possession of property gives, as,
for instance, the peasant proprietor, or member of a co
partnership, has far stronger motives for self-restraint, and
can see much more clearly the evil effects of having a large
family.”
�8
The end in view in all this is the attainment of a greater
amount of happiness for humankind. The rendering life
more worth the living, by distributing more equally than at
present its love, its beauties, and its charms. In one of his
most recent publications, Mr. John Stuart Mill observes
that—
“ In a world in which there is so much to interest, so
much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve,
every one who has a moderate amount of moral and intel
lectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be
called enviable; and unless such a person, through bad laws,
or subjection to the will of others, is denied the liberty to
use the sources of happiness within his reach, he will not
fail to find this enviable existence, if he escape the positive
evils of life, the great sources of physical and mental suffer
ing, such as indigence, disease, and the unkindness, worth
lessness, or premature loss of objects of affection. The main
stress of the problem lies, therefore, in the contest with
these calamities, from which it is a rare good fortune en
tirely to escape, which, as things now are, cannot be obviated,
and often cannot be in any material degree mitigated. Yet
no one whose opinion deserves a moment’s consideration
can doubt that most of the great positive evils of the world
are in themselves removable, and will, if human affairs con
tinue to improve, be in the end reduced within narrow
limits. Poverty, in any sense implying suffering, may be
completely extinguished by the wisdom of society, combined
with the good sense and providence of individuals. Even
that most intractable of enemies, disease, may be indefinitely
reduced in dimensions by good physical and moral educa
tion and proper control of noxious influences, while the pro
gress of science holds out a promise for the future of still
more direct conquests over this detestable foe.”
In a former pamphlet—“Jesus, Shelley, and Malthus
the reader’s attention was entreated to this grave question.
In a few pages it is impossible to do more than erect a finger
post to point out a possible road to a given end. To attempt
in a narrow compass to give complete details, would be as
unwise as it would be unavailing. My desire is rather to
provoke discussion amongst the masses than to obtain will
ing auditors amongst the few, and I affirm it, therefore, as a
proposition which I am prepared to support—“That the
political condition of the people can never be permanently
reformed until the cause of poverty has been discovered and
the evil itself prevented and removed.’’
�
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Poverty: the effects on the political condition of the people
Creator
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891.]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 20p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Tentative date of publication from KVK. First published 30 May 1863 in the National Reformer.
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Austin & Co.
Date
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[1869?]
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G4941
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Social problems
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Poverty
-
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18e65bb164036a345f640bdb71cc74c5
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Text
WHY DO MEN STARVE?
BY C. BRADLAUGH.
ht is it that human beings are starved to death, in a
wealthy country like England, with its palaces, its cathe
drals, and its abbeys ; with its grand mansions, and luxu
rious dwellings, with its fine enclosed parks, and strictly
guarded preserves ; with its mills, mines, and factories ; with
its enormous profits to the capitalists ; and with its broad
acres and great rent rolls to the landholder ? The fact that
men, old, young, and in the prime of life; that women, and
that children, do so die, is indisputable. The paragraph in
the daily journals, headed “ Death from Starvation,” or
« Another death from Destitution,” is no uncommon one to
the eyes of the careful reader.
In a newspaper of one day, December 24th, 1864, may
be read the verdict of a London jury that “ the deceased.
Robert Bloom, died from the mortal effects of effusion or>
the brain and disease of the lungs, arising from natural
causes, but the said death was accelerated by destitution,
and by living in an ill-ventilated room, and in a court
wanting in sanitary requirementsand the verdict of
another jury, presided over by the very Coroner who sat oil
the last case, “ that the deceased, Mary Hale, was found
dead in a certain room from the mortal effects of cold and
starvationas also the history of a poor wanderer from the
Glasgow City Poor House found dead in the snow.
In London, the hive of the world, with its merchant
millionaires, even under the shadow of the wealth pile, star
vation is as busy as if in the most wretched and impo
�2
WHY DO MEN STARVE?
verished village; busy indeed, not always striking the victim
so obtrusively that the coroner’s inquest shall preserve
a record of the fact, but more often busy quietly, in the
wretched court and narrow lane, up in the garret, and down
in the cellar, stealing by slow degrees the life of the poor.
Why does it happen that Christian London, with its mag
nificent houses for God, has so many squalid holes for the
poor? Christianity from its thousand pulpits teaches,
“ Ask and it shall be given to you,” “ who if his son ask
bread, will he give him a stone ?” yet with much prayer the
bread is too frequently not encugh, and it is, alas 1 not seldom
that the prayer for bread gets the answer in the stone of
the paved street, where he lays him down to die. The
prayer of the poor outcast is answered by hunger, misery,
disease, crime, and death, and yet the Bible says, “ Blessed
be ye poor.*’ Ask the orthodox clergyman why men starve,
why men are poor and miserable; he will tell you that
it is God’s will; that it is a punishment for man’s sins.
And so long as men are content to believe that it is God’s
Will that the majority of humankind should have too little
happiness, so long will it be impossible effectually to get
them to listen to the answer to this great question.
Men starve because the great bulk of them are ignorant
of the great law of population, the operation of which coiltrols their existence and determines its happiness Or misery.
They starve, because pulpit teachers have taught them for
centuries to be content with the state of life in which it has
pleased God to call them, instead of teaching them how to
extricate themselves from the misery, degradation, and igno
rance which a continuance of poverty entails.
Men starve because the teachers have taught heaven in
stead of earth, the next world instead of this. It is now
generally admitted by those who have investigated the sub
ject, that there is a tendency in all animated life to increase
beyond the nourishment nature produces. In the human
race, there is a constant endeavour on the part of its mem
bers to increase beyond the means of subsistence within
�WHY DO MEN STARVE?
3
their reach. The want of food to support this increase
operates, in the end, as a positive obstacle to. the further
; spread of population, and men are starved because the great
, mass of them have neglected to listen to one of nature’s
clearest teachings. The unchecked increase of population is
in a geometrical ratio, the increase of food for their subsist
ence is in an arithmetical ratio. That is, while humankind
would increase in proportion as 1, 2, 4, 8,16, 32, 64, 128,
256, food would only increase as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
The more the mouths the less the proportion of food. While
the restraint to an increase of population is thus a want of
food, and starvation is the successful antagonist of strug
gling human life, it is seldom that this obstacle operates im
mediately—its dealing is more often indirectly against its
victims. Those who die of actual famine are few indeed
compared with those who die from various forms of disease,
induced by scarcity of the means of subsistence. If any of my
readers doubt this, their doubts may be removed by a very
short series of visits to the wretched homes of the paupers
of our great cities. Suicide is the refuge mainly of those
who are worn out in a bitter, and, to them, a hopeless struggle
against accumulated ills. Disease, suffering, and misery
are the chief causes of the prevalence of suicide in our coun
try, and suicide is therefore one form, although comparatively
minute, in which the operation of the law of population may
be traced.
From dread of the pangs of poverty, men, women, and
children are driven to unwholesome occupations, which des
troy not only the health of the man and woman actually
employed, but implant the germs of physical disease in their
offspring. A starving woman seeking food mixes white
lead with oil and turpentine for a paltry pittance, which
provides bare existence for her and those who share it; in
a few weeks, she is so diseased she can work no longer, and
the hospital and grave in turn receive her. Men and
women are driven to procure bread by work in lead mines•
they rapidly dig their own graves, and not alone themselves,
�4
WHY DO MEN STARVE.
but their wretched offspring are death-stricken as the
penalty; the lead poisons the blood of parent and child
alike. Young women and children work at artificial flower
making, and soon their occupation teaches that Scheele’s and
Schweenfurth green, bright and pleasing colours to the eye,
are death’s darts too often fatally aimed. The occupation
may be objected to as unhealthy; but the need for food is
great, and the woman’s or child’s wages, wretchedly little
though they are, yet help to fill the mouths at home: so the
wage is taken till the worker dies. Here, again, the checks
to an increase of population all stop short of starvation—the
victims are poisoned instead of starved. So where some
forty or fifty young girls are crowded into a badly ventilated
work-room, not large enough for half the number, from early
in the morning till even near midnight, when orders press;
or in some work-room where slop clothes are made, and
twenty-five tailors are huddled together in a little parlour
scarce wide enough for three—they work to live, and die
slowly while they work. They are not starved, but is this
sort of asphyxiation much better ? The poor are not only
driven to unhealthy, but also to noisome dwellings. There
are in London, Liverpool, G-lasgow, Edinburgh, Man
chester, and other large cities, fearful alleys, with wretched
hoftses, and small ill-ventilated rooms, each room containing
a family, the individuals of which are crowded together
under conditions so wretched that disease, and often speedy
death, is the only possible result. In the East of London,
ten, eleven, and, in some cases, fourteen persons have
been found sleeping in one wretched little room. Is it
wonderful that some of these misery-stricken ones die
before they have time to starve? • Erom poverty the
mother, obliged to constantly work that the miserable
pittance she gets may yield enough to sustain bare life, is
unable properly to nurse and care for baby-child, and often
quick death, or slow but certain disease, ending ultimately
m the grave, is the result.
The poor live by wages. Wages popularly signify the
�WHY DO MEN 8TAB.VE ?
5
amount of money earned by the labourer in a given time;
but the real value of the money-wages is the amount in
quantity and quality of the means of subsistence which
the labourer can purchase with that money. Wages may
be nominally high, but really low, if the food and com
modities to be purchased are, at the same time, dear in price.
An undue increase of population reduces wages in more
than one way : it reduces them in effect, if not in nominal
amount, by increasing the price of the food to be purchased;
and it also reduces the nominal amount, because the nominal
amount depends on the ©mount of capital at disposal for
employ, and the number of labourers seeking employment.
No remedies for low wages, no seheme for the prevention
and removal of poverty can ever be efficacious until they
operate on and through the minds and habits of the masses.
It is not from rich men that the poor must hope for deliver
ance from starvation. It is not to charitable associations
the wretched must appeal. Temporary alleviation of the
permanent evil is the best that can be hoped for from such
aids. It is by the people that the people must be saved. Mea
sures which increase the dependence of the poor on charitable
aid can only temporarily benefit one portion of the labour
ing class while injuring another in the same proportion; and
charity, if carried far, must inevitably involve the recipients
in ultimate ruin and degradation by destroying their mutual
self-reliance. The true way to improve the worker, in all cases
short of actual want of the necessaries of life, is to throw him
entirely on his own resources, but at the same time to teach
him how he may augment those resources to the utmost. It is
only by educating the ignorant poor to a consciousness of the
happiness possible to them, as a result of their own exer
tions, that you can induce them effectually to strive for it.
But, alas 1 as Mr. Mill justly observes, “ Education is not
compatible with extreme poverty. It is impossible effec
tually to teach an indigent population.” The time occupied
in the bare struggle to exist leaves but few moments and
fewer opportunities for mental cultivation to the very poor.
�6
WHY DO WEN STAHWE?
The question of wages and their relation to capital and
population, a question which interests a poor man so much,
is one on which he formerly hardly ever thought at all, and;
on which even now he thinks much too seldom. It is neces
sary to impress on the labourer that the rate of wages de
pends on the proportion between population and capital. If'
population increases without an increase of capital, wages
fell; the number of competitors in the labour market
being greater, and the fund to povide for them not having
increased proportionately, and if capital increases without
an increase of population, wages rise. Many efforts havebeen made to increase wages, but none of them can be per
manently successful which do not include some plan for
preventing a too rapid increase of labourers. Population
has a tendency to increase, and has increased, faster than
capital; this is evidenced by the poor and miserable condi
tion of the great body of the people in most of the old
countries of the world, a condition which can only be
accounted for upon one of two suppositions, either that
there is a natural tendency in population to increase faster
than capital, or that capital has, by some means, been pre
vented from increasing as rapidly as it might have done. That
population has such a tendency to increase that, unchecked,
it would double itself in a small number of years—say
twenty-five—is a proposition which most writers of any
merit coneur in, and which may be easily proven. In some
instances, the increase has been even still more rapid. That
capital has not increased sufficiently is evident from the
existing state of society. But that it could increase under any
circumstances with the same rapidity as is possible to popu
lation, is denied. The increase of capital is retarded
by an obstacle which does not exist in the case of popu
lation. The augmentation of capital is painful. It can
only be effected by abstaining from immediate enjoyment.
In the case of augmentation of population precisely the
reverse obtains. There the temporary and immediate plea-,
sure is succeeded by the permanent pain. The only pos-i
�WHY DO MEN STAI1VE?
7
sible mode of raising wages permanently, and effectually
'benefitting the poor, is by so educating them that they shall
be conscious that their welfare depends upon the exercise of a
greater control over their passions.
In penning this brief paper, my desire has been to
provoke amongst the working classes a discussion and
careful examination of the teachings of political economy,
as propounded by Mr. J. S. Mill and those other
able men who, of late, have devoted themselves to ela
borating and popularising the doctrines enunciated by
Malthus. While I am glad to find that there are some
■amongst the masses who are inclined to preach and put in
practice the teachings of the Malthusian School of political
economists, I know that they are yet few in comparison
with the great body of the working classes who have been
taught to look upon the political economist as the poor
man’s foe. It is nevertheless amongst the working men
alone, and, in the very ranks of the starvers, that the effort
must be made to check starvation. The question is again
before us—How are men to be prevented from starving ?
Not by strikes, during the continuance of which food is
scarcer than before. No combinations of workmen can ob
tain high wages if the number of workers is too great. It
is not by a mere struggle of class against class that the poor
man’s ills can be cured. The working classes can alleviate
their own sufferings. They can, by co-operative schemes,
which have the advantage of being educational in their
operation, temporarily and partially remedy some of the
■evils, if not by increasing the means of subsistence, at
any rate by securing a larger portion of the result of
labour to the proper sustenance of the labourer. Systems
of associated industry are of immense benefit to the work
ing classes, not alone, or so much from the pecuniary
improvement they result in, but because they develop
in each individual a sense of dignity and independence,
which he lacks as a mere hired labourer. They can per
manently improve their condition by taking such steps as
�8
WHY DO MEN STARVE?
shall prevent too rapid an increase of their numbers, and,
by thus checking the supply of labourers, they will, as
capital augments, increase the rate of wages paid to the
labourer. The steady object of each working man should
be to impress on his fellow-worker the importance of this
subject. Let each point out to his neighbour not only the
frightful struggle in which a poor man must engage who
brings up a large family, but also that the result is to place
in the labour market more claimants for a share of the
fund which has hitherto been found insufficient to keep the
working classes from death by starvation.
The object of this pamphlet will be amply attained if it
serve as the means of inducing some of the working classes
to examine for themselves the teachings of Political Economy.
All that is at present needed is that labouring men and
women should be accustomed, both publicly and at home, to
the consideration and discussion of the views and principles
first openly propounded by Mr. Malthus, and since elaborated
by Mr. Mill and other writers. The mere investigation of
the subject will of itself serve to bring to the notice of the
masses many facts hitherto entirely ignored by them. All
must acknowledge the terrible ills resulting from poverty,
and all therefore are bound to use their faculties to discover
Ft’ possible its cause and cure. It is more than folly for the
working man to permit himself to be turned away from the
subject by the cry that the Political Economists have no
sympathy with the poor. If the allegation were true, which
it is not, it would only afford an additional reason why this
important science should find students amongst those who
most need aid from its teachings.
;
1
London: Austin & Co., Printers and Publishers, 17, Johnson’s Court
Fleet Street, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Why do men starve?
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891.]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[Austin & Co.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1867]
Identifier
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G4940
Subject
The topic of the resource
Social problems
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Why do men starve?), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Poverty
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B'ZrXS
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
POVERTY:
ITS EFFECTS ON THE .
POLITICAL CONDITION OF TEE PEOPLE.
BY
CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT
PUBLISHING
63 FLEET STREET, E.C.
1 8 9 0.
PRICE
ONE
PENNY.
COMPANY,
�Since this little pamphlet was first issued, nearly twentyfive years ago, there have been enormous changes. The
Reform Bills of 1867 and 1884 have placed the suffrage
in town and country in the hands of the very lowest. The
working of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, has
developed in the masses a higher and more acute sense of
suffering as well as capacity for happiness. The incite
ments to the poorest to require from the legislature and
the executive remedies for all wrongs are loud and
frequent. There are fairly good people, as well as very
wild ones, who seem to think that an Act of Parliament
or an Order in Council can provide food for the hungry
and work for the unemployed. In 1877, I was indicted
for trying to place within the reach of the very poor the
knowledge necessary to the application of the arguments
here outlined. From 1877 until now I have, on this
ground, been the object of coarsest assailment and grossest
misrepresentation. Yet, at least, I have the satisfaction
of knowing that the birth-rate in this country has sensibly
diminished; that an association of Church clergymen and
others in the East End of London has helped in this
direction; and that a respectable journal, the Weekly Times
and Echo, has boldly taken the very course for which I
was nearly sent to gaol. I have had, too, the advantage
of reading a judicial deliverance at the Antipodes, which
more than outweighs many of the hard things said of me
here. My co-defendant in 1877 has, in her “Law of
Population”, dealt with details necessary to be known
by the very poor. This pamphlet is, as it was at first
intended, only a finger-post to a possible road.
1890.
�POVERTY, AND ITS EFFECT ON THE POLITICAL
CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.
‘'•'Political Economy does not itself instruct how to make a nation
rich, but whoever would be qualified to judge of the means of making
a nation rich must first be a political economist.”—John Stuart Mill.
“The object of political economy is to secure the means of sub
sistence of all the inhabitants, to obviate every circumstance which
might render this precarious, to provide everything necessary for
supplying the wants of society, and to employ the inhabitants so as to
make their several interests accord with then- supplying each other’s
wants.”—Sir James Stewart.
At the close of the eighteenth century, a people rose
searching for upright life, who had previously, for several
generations, depressed by poverty and its attendant hand
maidens of misery, prowled hunger-stricken and discon
solate, stooping and stumbling through the byways of
existence. A terrible revolution resulted in much rough
justice and some brutal vengeance, much rude right, and
some terrific wrong. Amongst the writers who have since
narrated the history of this people’s struggle, some penmen
have been assiduous and eager to search for, and chronicle
the errors, and have even not hesitated to magnify the
crimes, of the rebels; while they have been very slow to
recognise the previous demoralising and dehumanising
tendency of the system rebelled against. In very briefly
dealing with the state of the people in France immediately
prior to the grand convulsion which destroyed the Bastille
Monarchy, and set a glorious example of the vindication of
the rights of man against opposition the most formidable
that can be conceived; I hold that in this illustration of
the condition of the masses in France who sought to erect
on the ruins of arbitrary power the glorious edifice of civil
and religious liberty, an answer may be found to the
question—“What is the.effect of poverty on the political
condition of the people? ”
In taking the instance, of France, it is not that the writer
for one moment imagines that poverty is a word without
meaning in our own lands. In some of the huge aggre
gations making up our great cities there are extremes
of poverty and squalor difficult to equal in any part of the
�4
civilized world. But in England poverty is happily partial,
while in France in the eighteenth century outside the
palaces of the nobles and the mansions of the church,
where luxury, voluptuousness, and effeminacy were
supreme, poverty was universal. In the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries travellers in France could learn from
the sadness, the solitude, the miserable poverty, the
dismal nakedness of the empty cottages, and the starving,
ragged, population, how much men could endure without
dying . On the one side a discontented, wretched, hungry
mass of tax-providing slaves, and on the other a rapacious,
pampered, licentious, spendthrift monarchy. This culmi
nated in the refusal of the laborers to cultivate the fertile
soil, because the tax-gatherer’s rapacity left an insufficient
remnant to provide the cultivator with the merest necessaries
of life. Then followed “ uncultivated fields, unpeopled
villages, and houses dropping to decay; ” the great cities—
as Paris, Lyons, and Bordeaux—crowded with begging
skeletons, frightful in their squalid disease and loathsome
aspect. Even after the National Assembly had passed
some .measures of temporary alleviation, the distress in
Paris itself was so great that at the gratuitous distributions'
of bread ‘‘old people have been seen to expire with their
hands stretched out to receive the loaf, and women waiting
their turn in front of the baker’s shop were prematurely
delivered of dead children in the open street ”. The great
mass of the people were as ignorant as they were poor;
were ignorant indeed because they were poor. Ignorance
is the pauper’s inalienable heritage. Partial education to
a badly fed and worse housed population is only the stimulus
to the expression of discontent and disaffection. When
the struggle is for the means of subsistence, and these are
only partially obtained, there is little hope for the luxury
of a leisure hour in which other emotions can be cultivated
than those of the mere desires for food and rest—sole results
of the laborious monotonousness of machine work; a round
of toil and sleep closing in death—the only certain refuge
for the worn-out laborer. Without the opportunity
afforded by the possession of more than will satisfy the
immediate wants, there can be little or no culture of the
mental faculties. The toiler, when badly paid and ill-fed,
is separated from the thinker. Nobly-gifted, highlycultured though the poet may be, his poesy has no charms
for the father to whom one hour’s leisure means short
�5
food for his hungry children clamoring for bread. At
best the song like that of the Corn Law Rhymer, or the
Ca Ira of Paris, serves as a hymn of vengeance. The picture
gallery, replete with the finest works of our greatest
masters, is rarely trodden ground to the pitman, the
ploughman, the poor pariahs to whom the conceptions of
the highest art-treasures are impossible. The beauties of
nature are almost equally inaccessible to the dwellers in
the narrow lanes of great cities. Out of your narrow
wynds in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and on to the moor and
mountain side, ye poor, and breathe the pure life-renewing
breezes. Not so ; the moors are for the sportsmen and
peers, not for peasants ; and a Scotch Duke—emblem of
the worst vices of a selfish, but fast decaying House
of Lords—closes miles of heather against the pedestrian’s
foot. But even this paltry oppression is unheeded. Duke
Despicable is in unholy alliance with King Poverty, who
mocks at the poor mother and her wretched, ragged family,
when from the garret or cellar in a great Babylon wilder
ness they set out to find green fields and new life. Work
days are sacred to bread, and clothes, and rent; hunger, in
clement weather, and pressing landlord forbid the study
of nature ’twixt Monday morn and Saturday night, and on
Sunday God’s ministers require to teach a weary people
how to die, as if the lesson were not unceasingly inculcated
in their incessant toil. Oh! horrid mockery; men need
teaching how to live. According to religionists, this world’s
bitter misery is a dark and certain preface, “ just pub
lished,” to a volume of eternal happiness, which for 2,000
years has been advertised as in the press and ready for
publication, but which after all may never appear. And
notwithstanding that everyday misery is so very potent,
mankind seem to heed it but very little. The second
edition of a paper containing the account of a battle in
which some 5,000 were killed and wounded, is eagerly
perused, but the battle in which poverty kills and maims
hundreds of thousands, is allowed to rage with com
paratively small expression of concern.
“ If a war or a pestilence threatens us, every one is excited at
the prospect of the misery which may result; prayers are put
up, and every solemn and mournful feeling called forth; but
these evils are to poverty but as a grain of sand in the desert,
as the light waves that ruffle a dark sea of despair. Wars
come, and go, and perhaps their greatest evils consist in their
�6
aggravation of poverty by the high prices they cause ; pesti
lences last a season and then leave us; but poverty, the grim
tyrant of our race, abides with us through all ages and in
a 1 circumstances. For each victim that war and pestilence
have slain, for each, heart that they have racked with suffering,
poverty has slain its millions whom it has first condemned
to drag out wearily a life of bondage and degradation.”
The poor in France were awakened by Rousseau’s start
ling declaration that property was spoliation; they knew
they had been spoiled, the logic of the stomach was con
clusive ; empty bellies and aching brains were the pre
decessors of a revolution which sought vengeance when
justice was denied, but which full-stomached critics of
later days have calumniated and denounced.
Warned by. the past, ought we not to make some
endeavor to give battle to that curse of all old countries
-—poverty ? The fearful miseries of want of food and
leisure which the poor have to endure seriously hinder
their political enfranchisement. Those who desire that
men and women shall have the rights of citizens, should be
conscious how low the poor are trampled dowm, and how
incapable poverty renders them for the performance of the
duties of citizenship. The question of political freedom is
really determined by the wealth or poverty of the masses;
to this, extent, at any rate, that a poverty-stricken people
must, if that state of pauperism has long existed, neces
sarily be an ignorant and enslaved people.
The problem is, how to remove or at least to lessen
poverty,. as it is only by the diminution of poverty that
the political emancipation of the nation can be rendered
possible. Twenty years ago the average food of the
agricultural laborer in England was about half that
allotted by the gaol dietary to sustain criminal life. So
that the peasant who built and guarded his master’s hay
stack got worse fed and worse lodged than the incendiary
convicted for burning it down. An anonymous writer,
thirty years ago, said :—
The rural population of many parts of England are, as
a general rule, half-starved. They have to toil like bond
slaves, with no leisure for amusement, education, or any other
blessing which elevates or sweetens human life; and after all,
they have only half enough of the very first essential of life,
the working classes in the towns, are also miserably paid, often
half-starved ; and are sweated to death in unhealthy sedentary
diudgery, such as tailoring, cotton-spinning, weaving, etc.”
�4
How can suoli poverty bo removed and prevented?
“ Thero is but one possible mode of preventing any evil—
namely, to seek for and romovo its cause. The cause of low
wages, or in other words of Poverty, is over-population; that
is, the existence of too many people in proportion to the food,
of too many laborers in proportion to the capital. It is of the
very first importance, that the attention of all who seek to
remove poverty, should never be diverted from this great truth.
The disproportion between the numbers and the food is the
only real cause of social poverty. Individual cases of poverty
may be produced by individual misconduct, such as drunken
ness, ignorance, laziness, or disoaso ; but these of all other
accidental influences must bo wholly thrown out of the question
in considering the permanent cause, and aiming at the pre
vention of poverty. Drunkenness and ignorance, moreover,
a,re far more frequently tho effect than the cause of poverty.
Population and food, like two runners of unequal swiftness
chained together, advance sido by side; but tho ratio of
increase of tlio former is so immensely superior to that of tho
latter, that it is necessarily greatly cheeked ; and tho chocks are
of course either more deaths or fewer births—that is, either
positive or preventive.”
Unless the necessity of the preventive or positive chocks
to population bo perceived ; unless it be clearly seen, that
they must operate in one form, if not in another; and that
though individuals may escape them, the race cannot; human
society is a hopeless and insoluble riddle.
Quoting John Stuart Mill, the writor from whom the
foregoing extracts have been made, proceeds—
“The groat object of statesmanship should bo to raise tho
habitual standard of comfort among the working classes, and
to bring them into such a position as shows them most,
clearly that their welfare depends upon themselves. For
this purpose ho advises that there should bo, first, an ex
tended scheme of national emigration, so as to produce a,
striking and sudden improvement in the condition of the
laborers loft at home, and raise their standard of comfort;
also that tho population truths should bo disseminated as
widely as possible, so that a powerful public fooling should
bo a,wakened among tho working classes against undue pro
creation on tho part of any individual among them- a feel
ing which oould not fail greatly to influence individual conduct;
and also that we should use every endeavor to got rid of
tho present system of labor—-namely, that of employers
and employed, and adopt to a. great extent that of independent
or associated industry. His res,son for this is, that a, hired
laborer, who has no personal interest in tho work he is
�8
engaged in, is generally reckless and without foresight,
living from hand to mouth, and exerting little control over
his powers of procreation; whereas the laborer who has a
personal stake in his work, and the feeling of independence
and self-reliance which the possession of property gives, as,
for instance, the peasant proprietor, or member of a co
partnership, has far stronger motives for self-restraint, and
can see much more clearly the evil effects of having a large
family.”
The end in view in all this is the attainment of a greater
amount of happiness for humankind—the rendering life
more worth the living, by distributing more equally than
at present its love, its beauties, and its charms. In one of
his latest publications, John Stuart Mill wrote—
‘ ‘ In a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to
enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, every one who
has a moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is
capable of an existence which may be called enviable; and
unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the
will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happi
ness within his reach, he will not fail to find this enviable
existence, if he escape the possible evils of life, the great
sources of physical and mental suffering, such as indigence,
disease, and the unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of
objects of affection. The main stress of the problem lies,
therefore, in the contest with these calamities, from which it is
a rare good fortune entirely to escape, which, as things now are,
cannot be obviated, and often cannot be in any material degree
mitigated. Yet no one whose opinion deserves a moment’s
consideration can doubt that most of the great positive evils of
the world are in themselves removable, and will, if human
affairs continue to improve, be in the end reduced within
narrow limits. Poverty, in any sense implying suffering,
may be completely extinguished by the wisdom of society,
combined with the good sense and providence of individuals.
Even that most intractable of enemies, disease, may be in
definitely reduced in dimensions by good physical and moral
education and proper control of noxious influences, while the
progress of science holds out a promise for the future of still
more direct conquests over this detestable foe.”
My desire is to provoke discussion of this subject
amongst all classes, and I affirm, therefore, as a proposi
tion which I am prepared to support—‘1 That the political
condition of the people can never be permanently reformed
until the cause of poverty has been discovered and the
evil itself prevented and removed.”
Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Beadlaugh, 63 Fleet St., E.C.—1890.
�
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Poverty : its effect on the political condition of the people
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: First published 30 May 1863 in the National Reformer. - 1890 ed. has a foreword, unsigned, by Bradlaugh. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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1890
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Social problems
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Political Economy
Poverty
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Text
WASTETHRIFTS AND WORKMEN.
OF THE MODE OF PRODUCING THEM,
AND
THEIR RELATIVE VALUE TO THE COMMUNITY.
BY
HENRY BRANDRETH, M.A.,
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND CURATE AT ST. BOTOLPH’S, BISHOPSGATE.
Now, sir, what make you here ?
Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing. ’I
What mar you then, sir?
Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made,
a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.
As You Like It.
LONDON:
LONGMANS,
GREEN, AND
18G8.
Price One Shilling.
CO.
�The main principle advocated in these pages is, that real productive
ness in any field can only be secured by sparing the growing crops ; and
that the work of children of every age must be arranged, not to secure
the largest immediate return, but to develop the greatest capacity of ivork
in after-life.
�19 Finsbury Circus, E.C.:
April 18G8.
LONDON WASTETHRIFTS.
The condition of a great part of the poorer inhabitants of London is
deplorable in the extreme, and there can be no field calling more
urgently for the labours of the' philanthropist and the Christian. Thousands of adult workmen are; from defective education (considering
school and apprenticeship together as education), incapable of earning
more than the barest journeyman’s wages, and they have little sense of
any duty incumbent upon them of earning for any purpose save that
of spending on the gratification of their immediate desires ; if they look
forward at all, they contentedly regard the ‘ house ’ and the rates as the
natural provision for their age. They have no idea of any obligation
upon them to support sick or decayed members of their families, and they
consider their children not as fellow-creatures whom they are responsible
for having brought into the world, and whom they should make some
effort to make masters of some trade which would make them able to
earn good wages and maintain themselves in honest industry through
life, but as pieces of property who ought to be bringing them in some
thing, out of Whom they have a natural right to increase their incomes
by selling their services during youth, but whom they will have no
interest in when a few years are past; and hence, in too many cases, they
follow their interest, and sell them for an immediate wage, instead of cul
tivating the capacity of doing real work in after life; and this destroys
all hope that the rising generation will be made into anything superior
to the present. If these children were all taken from their parents and
placed in industrial schools, their grievance would not be any infringe
ment of any right of a man to direct the education of his children, but
the loss of the earnings of the little slaves during their youth.
The question must be fairly asked—Can society do nothing to im
prove the condition of the next generation ?
Experience shows that it is possible to excite lively feelings of
affection and gratitude in yormg minds towards those persons and in
stitutions who labour for their benefit during youth; the gratitude of
children to those masters who, in school or in business, try to do well
by them is a real force binding them to good ; and the hearts of chil
dren can be turned to a loyal appreciation of the benefits which law
and order have conferred upon them, instead of to a sullen belief that
high civilisation and progress merely separate the rich and poor
by a yet wider interval. A well directed education in school and
business makes them capable of doing real work throughout life, and at
the same time sets them safely above most of the dangers of early life.
a 2
�4
It is, however, difficult to keep children at school, because the body
is somewhat earlier in its development than the mind and heart, and it
can be put to perform certain tasks during the period allotted by
nature to the growth of the higher faculties. A prolonged education
sacrifices the actual work by which a child might contribute to the
wealth of the world, for the sake of training it to become a real con
tributor through after life, and of securing favourable conditions for
the ripening of the moral and intellectual powers. These early years
are not those during which children are capable of any very serious
work; but the importance of keeping good examples of action from
conscientious motives before children cannot be over-estimated. Their
unconscious imitation of all that is kept before them, recommended by
the voice of all those whom they look up to, makes a second nature of
doing right or wrong. It must, however, be remembered that mostd
masters are so distant from the boys that the real examples which they
follow are their school-fellows; and it is what is called the general tone
of a school which really influences education; and the best masters are
not those who influence single boys to copy a pattern unsuited to their
age, but those who raise the average sense of duty in all around them.
I do not, however, dwell at present on the civilising and humanising
effects of real information, but on the practical money value of teaching
at this period of life. We may cease teaching a child as soon as it can
read and write, and hire it out to do such trifling work as it is already
capable of for the benefit of the adult population; but unless it is
somebody’s duty and somebody’s interest to make such child capable
of doing something more than what it can already do, it grows up to
the passions and appetites of an adult, but with the skill and reason of
a child. We may, on the contrary, pay fees to have it taught in
school, or a premium to have it taught as an apprentice; we may
develop its reason and increase its knowledge—the latter process
involves an immediate outlay—but the sum thus spent is an invest
ment bringing in an enormous return ; the child’s wages are increased,
i.e. the value of the work done by it for society is increased during
each year of real life, by a sum fully equal to that invested in improv
ing it.
A human being is, at the lowest, a very improvable piece of pro
perty, and becomes valuable in proportion as his mind and heart,
which contrive and save, gain the control of his body, which wastes
the stores of society. We may arrest the development of the con
trolling faculties, so that the man becomes a mere wastethrift, never able
to produce as much as he destroys. Thousands of such are annually
turned loose on society, and are in effect maintained on the fruits of
the industry of others, who by proper training have learnt to produce
more than is needed for their own immediate needs, and this it is
which impoverishes a country—the number of mouths without heads
or hands who are in any way maintained by the industry of others.
We are all ready to condemn the improvidence of a family where
the children are allowed to grow up without being made capable of
supporting themselves; but such conduct is not so short-sighted as our
own, because the cost of maintaining unprofitable members does not
�fall directly on the family, but is borne equally by the whole com
munity; but when a nation omits to train its youth to work, the cost
rwBMB and workhouses falls upon the nation itself.
It is a real drag on the progress of a nation to turn out uneducated
and undisciplined hordes who can do nothing which cannot be done
Mtn- half the cost by machinery, whose whole work does not replace
the value of the food and clothing they destroy. But every workman
who can produce a good article by which the comforts and conveniences of those around him can be raised, or their more real interests
advanced, is a real increase of the resources of the nation. For though
in particular trades the labour market may be overstocked, and the
■invention of machines may displace workmen, our power of converting
raw material into manufactured goods for the use of man will never
be too great, unless it is mere quickness at some detail, and not that
general intelligence which, by having learnt its proper lessons in child
hood, is capable of learning when childhood is past, and, when not
needed in one trade, can enter upon a new field of work, because its
training has not been so special as to make it merely an intelligent
wheel in a machine, which may any day be replaced by iron fingers
taught to perform the same thoughtless round of labour.
But the workmen themselves enter into associations to limit the
number of apprentices, because they see that labour will be sold
cheaper in any trade where there is an excess of workmen. But by
thus uniting to prevent their children from being made fit to earn their
own living for fear of their competition, they lower the average pro
ductive power throughout the country, and with it the average condition
of the workman. If the workers in any one trade could secure a
monopoly for their own labour, as in India, where trades are
hereditary, and the last survivor of a family may become the only
maker of an article; or if, while the producers in other trades increase,
the number, e.g. of watchmakers could be kept the same, there will be
more work and higher wages for each worker in that trade. But if the
number of hands in every trade is kept constant, and the increasing
population debarred from learning any trade which will enable them
to produce a fair equivalent for their food and clothing, every skilled
workman will have to support one of these incapables.
Whether this is done by increased iigost of everything, or by heavy
rates and high rents, or by the wastethrift being quartered upon the
■workman, will make no difference; the means conquered by labour
From nature will be shared by the incapables. But if the craftsmen
freely impart their skill, and each makes his wastethrift into a real
producer, then the means won from nature increase with the increase
of consumers. Power to win commodities from nature is not a thing
that there will ever be too much of. If a million of skilled labourers
can exist side by side, supporting each other by the mutual inter
change of their productions, another million side by side with them
could do the same. Restrictions overstock and cause misery in the
unprotected trades ; and at present the unskilled labour, is in excess.
A skilled labourer is one who produces more commodities than he con
sumes, and not only supports himself but has usually a surplus to
�6
accumulate, or to spend in poor-rates or luxuries. A wastethrift is one
who cannot improve the raw material furnished by nature sufficfewl|
to provide himself with necessaries, and is, in some way or other,
maintained by the winnings of others.
Of course, neither ever takes home the actual goods he makes; by
an arrangement of convenience, he daily receives their money value.
In proportion to his skill each increases daily the world’s goods by the
improvement of the material by his work; and the strength of a nation
consists in the number of such over-producers who unite to observe its
laws. Its weakness is the number of wastethrifts it has to maintain ;
and if, by effective educatiou, these over-consumers can be turned
into over-producers, the steady employment of their work is the
national resources.
A thousand more workmen, fairly distributed among the various
trades, do not mean more competition for the little work there already
is, but each creates a demand for additional work to exchange for his
. productions. Skilled workmen produce more than they consume.
They not only lead innocent and happy lives themselves, but create
fresh markets for labour among ourselves, with a real increase of
national force. We adopt very questionable means of opening foreign
markets, while the cost of an expedition would create a new people
among ourselves—certain customers in our markets, willing sharers of
our taxes—instead of the mass of pauperism and crime which we allow
to lie at our doors, till it has rotted sufficiently for us to assume the
permanent charge of maintaining it in workhouses and jails. Skilled
productive workmen are the real elements of a nation’s strength. Money
can only produce by setting men to work. Men combine, and shape
the rough material which nature affords till it becomes serviceable ;
they make tools and machines, extract food and ores from the earth.
The work of man alone enables men to live. The whole produce on
w’hich all live is due to the intelligence and skill of each; and the
whole work of each creature is highest if he is spared when young, and
taught, till he becomes a really effective producer.
Even if every man is trained to do some one thing fairly, machines
will continually be invented doing the same things well, and cheaply.
The commodities produced by a day’s unaided labour will be sold for
less than a man can be supported on, and the man must starve, beg,
steal, or work at another trade. But without that early quickening of
the faculties which early education produces, a man cannot turn to
anything new. Intelligent hands would increase the productiveness of
other fields of labour by the transfer of their power, and the machines
would increase the productiveness of all, without any increase in the
consumption of necessaries ; each would spend the same wages on the
purchase of a larger stock of the cheapened comforts. Hence, in an age
of mechanical inventions, untrained and half-trained workmen must
suffer, and swell the mass of pauperism and discontent. But such evils
can be provided against by training our workmen to that special form
of labour which no machine can execute—viz. thinking. Each has
within him a far more subtle machine than man has ever invented, the.
powers of which, in improving the labour of the human hand, cannot
�7
be over-estimated; and alittle care taken of this machine during early
life will make each a capable worker for ever.
Every man only trained to such work as a machine can do better
must be a tax upon society for life; but careful schooling, apprentice
ships and industrial training, will make him a useful contributor
through life. And the education of the manual-labour classes, which
all recognise as the great need of the day, is not called for by recent
legislation, but by the characteristic feature of the age—by the in
dention of machinery.
It has always been reckoned to the credit of machinery that it
would perform the harder work—the drudgery of human labour—
and, terminating the necessity for man’s toiling as a mere beast of
burden, set him free to ennobling and elevating pursuits. But the
doing of the work of unskilled hands is a doubtful blessing if we,
at the same time, continue to pour upon the market thousands of un
skilled hands, incapable of those higher arts which are henceforth to
be the only work of man. The tools with whi|h men contend with
ipature are becoming too delicate to be handled by ignorant men; and
the genius of inventors has, unfortunately, beep, directed to bringing
out machines which will employ .the hands of children. At certain
points, a slightly more subtle movement is required than machinery
can cheaply effect. A young child’s hand supplies this; but the
mental development of that child is hopelessly arrested by its round of
mechanical drudgery; it becomes a part of the machine, and grows to
the strength and appetites of a man, without its real value being much
increased beyond the sixpence a day which it earned at first. The
instinct of practising the mechanical arts needed for his support are not
developed in man as in lower orders of creation; but the most per
fectible creature is, in its origin, the weakest, being cast for a long
period of helpless infancy and childhood' on the forbearance of the
adult members of the species; but, during the years in which boys
need the protection of their elders, they are singularly apt to learn and
to receive moral impressions. And it is our only good economy to
conform to the plan by which nature intends that the creature shall be
perfected, to set it to learn whilst it is capable of learning, that it may
work effectively when strong enough to work. That any individual
adult should seek to enrich himself by using the half formed minds
and bodies for any trifling purpose which they are already capable
of, is only too natural; but that a nation should follow so short
sighted a policy is, I own, to me surprising. The nation is not so
utterly bankrupt that it cannot afford to educate its children, but
must, for the sake of their paltry earnings, sacrifice their future pro
spects and its own. Every child who now is, or ought to be, at
school is a most improvable piece of property. If neglected, he
will earn small wages, but, in his best days of full work and full
strength, not enough to support the family which he is sure to have,
in the habits of waste and intemperance to which he is accustomed.
But any sum invested in schooling and apprenticeship will make
him capable of earning an equal sum in wages every year of his life—
e.g. 261 of outlay would increase his weekly wages by at least 10s., or
�s
he will produce commodities at this increased rate; whilst, as a pros
perous workman, he will consume less than either as a beggar gaS
thief. Whether by wages paid as an equivalent for labour, or by poorrates, or in jail, society has made itself responsible for maintaining him,
and any family he may choose to rear. He is quite willing, however,
to learn the use of his head and hands, but neither he nor his parents
can afford the necessary outlay. We have lent money to poor land
lords to improve their estates; let us lend a little to poor children to
improve theirs, and we shall attain our end more certainly by making
education an obviously profitable investment than by any other means.
At present, the whole value of the improved estate is handed over to
the youth on entering into life ; and there are no means by which any
person who has been induced to sink any capital on the improvement
of the property can recover one penny. But men will not invest
money in making railways unless the legislature empowers them to
take tolls; men will not breed horses if others are to take them from
them.
It is a remarkable thing how every inducement to parents to invest
money on their children has been removed; since aged paupers are
secured maintenance from the poor-rates, the duty of the children is
terminated, and the parents derive no benefit from any wage-earning
power which might be developed in youth; and by the early age at
which children can be emancipated from parental control, we make it
the interest of the parents that they should earn as soon as possible.
But a master who buys the little slave’s work of his mother, instead of
taking an apprentice, does so merely to avoid all trouble and responsi
bility of teaching the child. It is a man’s interest to make an ap
prentice a good workman, because he looks for repayment for the outlay
and trouble of his first years from the work which he becomes capable
of doing before the end of his time ; but a mere money bargain autho
rising the employer to use up, in immediate rough unskilled work, the
docility and imitative powers of the child, which are the seed and
promise of his future life, this is a bargain in which it is clearly in
tended that the parent and employer should use up the child for their
profit, as fully as if the child were bought on the coast of Africa. It
would be better for a child to be—as was suggested at Manchester-—
ground up into corn (or, as might be suggested in the country, spun
into cotton) than to be thus taken from every opportunity of improve
ment, for children do not get better, but worse, every day, unless special
pains are taken with their training. The greatest obstacles to frugality
on the part of the poor is the uncertainty and distant day of any
return ; they see that saving does not really increase their means in old
age, but that the man who spends his all every day will be relieved
up to any standard of comfort which their savings are ever likely to
command. But if we can make it obviously profitable to invest on
their children’s education, the immediate pleasure of working for a child
and setting it a good example is one which need only be once felt to
secure a continuance of such exertion. Much is said about the selfish
ness of parents, but the fault is not entirely theirs; the employers have
no plea of necessity, they merely employ child labour because it is
�9
cheap; they deliberately employ one boy after another to avoid the
■fahEnreSd responsibility of an apprentice, and turn them out untaught
Bin dlhn ski lied to swell the ranks of those who cannot compete with the
machines, ‘with as little compunction as a man would feel at drowning
an overgrown kitten. They bribe the parent to throw away the chance
of improvement. It is not the working classes who derive any benefit
from dealing with children to get all that is possible out of them,
instead of trying to put all that is possible into them. In fact it is
hard to see that any class profits by making the young children labour
for them. The capitalist buys work cheaper for it, and is enabled to
introduce machines which could not have competed with human labour,
but for their direction being within the power of a cheap boy. But
he does not really profit, because competition forces him to sell at
the lowest remunerative rate. The working classes are forced to sell
their work for less because of the very cheap rate at which child labour
can be bought; and if the owners of fixed property seem to profit by
cheapened goods, they have eventually to bear the increased rates
which are finally needed for those half-developed workers, who are as
completely incapable of supporting themselves as if they had lost the
use of their limbs, instead of that of their heads. The cheap rate of
production is a gain by bringing more commodities within the reach
of all, though it may fairly be doubted whether the increase of
comfort, as the world grows older, does make each generation happier
than the last; and any such gain is most dearly purchased by the
nation at the cost of consuming its most valuable elements of future
strength.
Even if compulsory education, the applying of the rod which modern
theorists would spare on the child, to the parents were practicable, it
would be better to make the parents wish for their children’s education,
to enlist all possible home influences to make them valuable workmen,
and introduce into the families the natural virtues of parent and child;
this will be the better thing both for the parent and the child. No
legislation will produce any great result by attempting to compel half
the community to do something which they believe to be contrary to
their interests. It is necessary to secure the hearty co-operation of the
head of every house, to make his interests identical with those of his
children; at present the child requires protection from the necessity of
immediate productive labour, and the cultivation of such faculties as
it possesses; every pound spent upon it is worth a pound a year through
life; but the parent requires that the earnings should be large during
the period in which only the natural dependence of children enables
them to be taught effectively: five shillings earned at once is more to
the parent than five pounds a year through life. It is idle to affect to
be surprised if the general conduct of large bodies of men is dictated
by their interests.
But it is a most reckless waste of the national strength to allow the
management of these most improvable pieces of property to remain in
the unaided hands of men who cannot advance the sum necessary for
\ their proper cultivation, and whose tenure terminates before any
•rail liable crop is ripe. The education of the country is neglected for
�10
the same reason that its agriculture would be if each acre of land were
in the hands of a peasant who was forced to give up possession to
another early in July. Is it not obvious that nobody will cultivated
valuable late ripening crop unless he has some security that he will
reap it ?
If the tenure of land were such as I have suggested, the remedy
would be to alter the tenure by giving the possessor control over the
property till the crops were ripe, or from some general fund to which
all might contribute to remunerate the outgoing tenant according
to the condition of his acre, or for society at large to undertake the
cultivation. This, however expensive it might seem, would be in the
end a real saving; and if they hesitated about it, they would all ba.
starved, as acre after acre was cultivated only for such common stuff
as coidd be sold in June.
And the practical problem is how to secure that a sufficient portion
of the increased value of an educated child should be paid to the
person who is at the cost and trouble of educating If the educator
could be sure of a return proportioned to the earnings of the child from
twenty to twenty-five, education and the improvement of workmen
would become at once the best investment in which capitalists could
invest their money. Nor could the charitable endowments of the
country, whose abuse is the theme of every tongue, find a better use.
The taxation of one part of the community for the gratuitous relief of
the other is already carried to a most alarming extent by the poorlaws ; but the system of supporting the incapable deprives a workman
of every incentive to frugality ; he sees that by strict economy he may
secure an annuity ; but any such return is very distant, and seems to
him very uncertain; meanwhile he sees that his neighbour, who spends
weekly every penny, has a great deal of pleasure at once, and will in
his old age be quite as certainly provided for by the parish; everything
which he lays by will in fact be taxed to make his improvident neigh
bour as comfortable as himself.
All workmen are taxed to contribute to a fund which is finally
divided among the most thriftless: we should rather endeavour to
make even more marked the contrast of the results of idleness and
industry. If society and labour must be taxed to maintain the un
employed, let the aid at least be directed to secure that the next
generation become fit to maintain themselves. If men know not
how to support themselves, let them forego the right of bringing up
children as incapable and unintelligent as themselves. Society has both
the power and the right to control the liberty. of those who cannot
maintain themselves. If the honest man were asked to invest his
savings at once in his children’s training, by the hope of an honourable
fairly earned annuity, proportioned to the efficiency of their training,
he would have a real interest in seeing that his children frequented good
schools and profited by the teaching; it would be his interest that his
children should become virtuous and intelligent; and not only would
this result be generally secured for the children, but the parents would
be humanised by their efforts to humanise their children.
If education is a most profitable national investment, the magnitude
�1^
^fflEfiKhl^^^S^^^RyiSthe greatest possible recommendation. The
SmSBMWMS^E^nunerative, because it penetrates a fertile district of
parental and Christian benevolence, and gives room for the play of
forces whose energy is real and very great.
Theiparent who brings a child into the world is already responsible
for its maintenance. In a large workhouse-school a child cannot be
kept for less than 107., and in a working man’s house the cost is probably greater; and we may put at 100Z. the cost of rearing a young
animal capable of exerting some physical force, but entirely devoid of
Bfe intelligence which might enable him to apply that force usefully.
They (for he is certain to marry and have a large family) consume
daily more commodities than he produces, and are maintained by the
Fwork of the rest of the community. The creature thus reared is one
which no slave-owner would take as a gift, unless he had power to
work, feed, and clothe it in a way which our workhouse officials would
Rry shame on. But it is in the power of society, by spending a small
sum in aid of the large outlay already incurred by the parent, to
develop a mind, to make the wastethrift into a skilled intelligent workman, whose labour will every year fully replace all that it consumes,
and whose earnings in any single year will amply replace any sum
Advanced.
A very small part of the encouragement given ,to the investment of
money in railways would enable the zeal which® is so widely felt to
bring the means of becoming an intelligent workman within the reach
of every child. We did not then trust the zealpwmen for their fellowCreatures’ good; we did not leave each owner of an acre of land to do
as he liked. We passed laws that the interests of the community were
more important than the rights of individuals, and we sanctioned the
levying of tolls; so now we must make it a safe investment to train
skilled workmen, by allowing the person investing to share the increased
value of the manufactured article. But among the poorer classes,
where the parents actually have not the money to invest, it is the
interest of the community at large to levy rates and taxes to increase
the future productiveness of the country. It would be a real blessing
to a child if the school were to keep an account against it of all sums
expended, and the repayment of such advances made a first charge on
his earning. But it would be far better in every way to throw the
charge on local and national taxation than on any individual.
It is particularly cruel that the nation should in this century grudge
the cost of education. Fifty years ago the day’s work of an unskilled
labourer earned enough to support him; but we have discovered buried
underground enormous stores of that untrained force which is all that
an untrained workman has to sell; and when he comes and asks for
work and wages, the practical answer is that one shilling’s worth of coal
will do everything he is capable of; in fact, the iron giant would pro
bably give less trouble and need less superintendence than the man.
We have found in coal mines that by which the productiveness of
Rilled labour is enormously increased, and unskilled labour made
worthless; but the reduced cost of everything due to machinery puts
it in our power to afford for others the training which it renders neces
�12
sary. The skill of the workman must keep pace with the improvement
in his tools; more time than formerly is required to develop sufficient
intelligence to enable them to do work above the capacity of the
machines; during the years which youthful docility and quickness
point out as fitted for mastering any craft, children should be counted as
learners and repaid for any small service which they render the com
munity by increased opportunities of learning. Those who are
untaught to think, and incapable of turning their hands to any new
work, who from want of training of their intelligence can only do
mechanical work, will certainly be displaced by the more cheaply
working iron hands. It is not any special kind of knowledge which
schools are useful for imparting, but the general cultivation of the moral
and intellectual faculties; these cannot be strengthened in a child whose
whole daily stock of energy is wanted in the mill or farm; neither
growing mind nor growing body will improve if strained by labour to
minister to the comfort of adults.
The displacement of his labour by machinery is no very great matter
to a man whose intelligence enables him to turn his hand to something
else. It is the hopelessly unintelligent whose minds are closed against
all new ideas who have to be maintained by the community.
But education is a great religious duty, and this is to. make it all a
matter of profit and calculation. Not at all; education is a religious
duty, and nobly is it performed. Witness the scanty salaries on which
masters work, finding their real payment in the sense of service done
to their fellows. But subscribing to anything is not a religious duty ;
the work which our Master calls us to cannot be done by paid hands
for us. Education will always remain in the hands of religious men,
the salaries of teachers are too small to retain those who have no zeal
for the work ; but we must not trust to that zeal which is only kindled
by personal contact to fill our subscription lists, or to advance such
capital as will enable masters to maintain themselves in their, labours
of love. Similarly, a passion for science retains many men in posts
the pay of which seems inadequate. But no passion for science will
ever bring any man to face the daily round of routine of a school.
Whilst children are under education, we are careful only to
put high motives to action before them, because their character is in
process of being moulded by the motives thought of by them. But
with adults, whose character is formed, we must not leave, powerful
motives unappealed to. Among men, their actions are more important
than their motives, and we take nature as it is, and seek to direct
their actions; with children, we look forward in hope to what nature is
becoming, and seek to perfect their motives—thinking their actions
comparatively of very little importance.
It is impossible to make the duty and interest of grown men too
obviously identical; however far the point is carried up to which in
terest and duty coincide, the worst parents will come up to that point
however advanced, whilst the zeal of the better class of parents will
still urge them to do more.
In dealing with a numerous class of adults, it would be folly to. say
that the duty of providing for their children is so clear that it is
�13
l"ver motives. We must rather try how
BWWBBHHMDe made to fall in the same direction with duty. There
|Mw hMffmffigB-oom for the preference of virtue at the last.
But the whole question of the religious view of education must be
UaQpIndently considered.
Though I have tried to point out how the national pocket is to be
benefited by liberal investment in education, the real interest which
B^Wuld be felt in it arises solely from the desire that the children
should be religiously and virtuously brought up. However great may
be the necessity of school-teaching for the purpose of raising our future
workmen into an intelligent class, capable each of producing sufficient
Bommodities to maintain himself in honest industry, instead of doing the
work which a machine can do for sixpence a day, and being maintained
on the alms of the real workers, we must not forget that there are
other interests beyond those of mere animal need which should not be
neglected. Of course, these interests are in great measure things of
faith, and many men will be simply unable to appreciate their im
portance. The excellence of a school is not anything that can be
written out during an examination, but will be spread throughout
the whole of after-life. The eye of the astronomer does not see a star
so distinctly by looking directly at it, but when he glances a little on
one side ; and children do not seize those things which are deliberately
set before them so readily as those which are laid in their way
without that straining of the attention which is considered the right
thing in lessons. And it is not the actual words which drop from the
teacher’s lips, not the precepts which he reiterates with authority, but
the daily, hourly example of those to whose example he unconsciously
endeavours himself to conform, and which is continually presented to
young minds as the standard of that society into which they look
forward to being admitted.
It is hardly necessary to say that education does a very small part
of the good in its power unless it secures that the children are brought
under humanising, moral, and religious influences. There is, however, no practical chance of education being really conducted by
irreligious teachers. The wages of a teacher are so small compared
with those of equally skilled workmen in^qually laborious and equally
responsible situations that the work haivery slight attractions to men
who do not feel that it is at once a duty and a pleasure. Within the
last thirty years, the ministers of religion have undertaken such an
amount of work and responsibility, and made such munificent contri
butions to schools, that others who, with far larger means and much
more time at their command, content themselves with talking, really
complain of their having pushed forwards in the matter. But this
high-class labour will not continue to support the schools if they
become places where men’s interests in this world are alone thought
of. The good teacher looks for his wages nopdn what he receives, but
in the far more real pleasure of giving. He asks for little, barely
enough to maintain himself, but he takes pleasure in the power of
giving to all around him something which they are really grateful for,
something which he knows to be even more desirable than they think.
�11
He has no applicants at his door clamorous for a dole, wBMMMing
pretence of gratitude, but he sees an easily read expression of the
heart’s emotions. It is true he will at times meet with unwilling re
cipients of his charity, but at least he knows it, and he also knows that
their kindness is only delayed, and that at the worst it is a small thing f&l
him to be judged by their judgment. Wordsworth tells most charm
ingly how the simple act of natural kindness from the strong to the
weak filled old Simon Lee’s heart with gratitude, and the schoolmaster
more than auy other man can say—
I’ve heard of hearts unkind kind deeds
With coldness still returning;
Alas ! the gratitude of men
Has oftener left me mourning.
But, of course, the nation is perfectly at liberty to say that it will
have industrial schools, where men shall give mere secular instruction.
Fine gentlemen may agitate, and make speeches, and even legislate in
favour of such schools; but five times the present amount of salaries
will not tempt men of the same stamp to undertake posts of such
degrading drudgery as the mechanical duty of preparing heathen
children for examination in the elements of secular knowledge. Unless
a man has sufficient belief in what he does believe to feel that a neces
sity is on him of preaching it, his example is one which will be most
undesirable to put before boys. The whole of this matter is admirably
put in the preface to ‘ Tom Brown —
‘ Several persons, for whose judgment I have the highest respect,
while saying very kind things about this book, have added that the
great fault of it is “ too much preaching;” but they hope I shall amend
in this matter, should I ever write again. Now this I most distinctly
decline to do. Why, my whole object in writing at all was to get the
chance of preaching. When a man comes to my time of life, and has
his bread to make, and very little time to spare, is it likely he will
spend almost the whole of his yearly vacation in writing a story just to
amuse people ? I think not. At any rate, I wouldn’t do so myself.’
1 The sight of sons, nephews, and godsons, playing trap-bat-and-ball, and
reading “ Robinson Crusoe,” makes one ask oneself whether there isn’t
something one would like to say to them before they take their first
plunge into the stream of life, away from their own homes, or while
they are yet shivering after their first plunge. My sole object in
writing was to preach to boys; if ever I write again, it will be to
preach to some other age. I can’t see that a man has any business to
write at all unless he has something which he thoroughly believes and
wants to preach about. If he has this, and the chance of delivering
himself of it, let him by all means put it in the shape in which it is
most likely to get a hearing, but let hi® never be so carried away as to
forget that preaching is his object.’
But although interference with the liberty of religious instruction
will have the disastrous effect of lowering the general moral character
of the teachers, by depriving the trade of every attraction »to every man
whose character and example it is at all desirable to keep before
children, the ministers of religion have it in their power to increase
�15
gr®iyn;newiniiUEroBwhich they now exert, and to secure the direction
of the forces which the newly awakened national demand for action
wi11 set in motion, by voluntarily exercising the self-denial of confining
their attention to the essential outlines of our religion. A very undue
of attention has been drawn to some theological questions by the
very fact of their fruits being hatred, variance, emulations, wrath,
strife, seditions, heresies. Superficial enquirers are so struck with the
Bare shown to define the differences of Christians that they lose the
whole weight of the testimony of the whole of the civilised world to the
really important facts of our religion. The religion which our Saviour
came to reveal was not a doctrine, noi' a ritual, but an example; the
records of His life give no countenance to the idea that any man was
ever turned back by Him on any speculative opinion of controversial
theology, or any question of dress. If He again walked among us, we
should not dare to bring under Hit notice the points disputed among
Protestant churches. Whilst the doctrines, so long ago tried and found
utterly inadequate to give men peace, of the Stoics, hoping to perfect
man by unaided development^ of the Epicureans, who would deny the
interference of a God in human affairs; or of those who sought peace in
the submission of reason and conscience to a sacrificing and absolving
priesthood—while these armies are closing in to the siege, we, like the
wretched Jews, are only intent on fortifying against each other the
portions of the city of God entrusted to our keeping.
But if our streets must be filled with this fratricidal struggle, let us
at least hide our weapons for one hour of early morning, while the
Children pass by on the way to school. What have these children
done that when they look up in their weakness for that guidance
which is absolutely necessary to their making their way in life we
should deserve the last touch of indignant satire with which the poet
dared to caricature the haters of the human race, 4 Hee monstrare vias
eadem nisi sacra colenti ? ’ And when the life-giving water of the
Saviour’s example, if set forth in the majesty of unadorned simplicity,
which his followers at the first were content to put forward, might
captivate the mind of every child, and of men willing to become as
little children, is it our religion ? iJQusesitum ad fontem solos deducere
verpos.’ Why, the result of our school-teaching of the last generation
Hs enough to show that to import into children’s schools the distinctive
tenets of denominations is offending the little ones, is forbidding them
to come to Jesus, is a yoke which cannot be borne. Can we be sur
prised if the State, seeing that the denominations insist on the division
of the living child, seeks elsewhere for the mother thereof?
A new-born babe is entirely unable to attach any meaning to the sights
and sounds which surround it. But by unconscious experience, and the
loving patience of others, it learns by little and little to form ideas about
things. But the formation of the moral sense, and realising the things
of the spiritual life, needs far more anxious patience on the part of all
around through whom it learns of this higher new world. But only
the most arrant pedantry would ever think of giving these lessons by
definite formal teaching; there is nothing in children’s minds which can
digest and assimilate formal teaching; religious influences are not things
�16
to be set before children at a fixed hour of the day. We must take a
lesson from The Great Teacher, and be content to veil our meaning for
a time in parables. And first among these is the daily acting of the
parent’s or teacher’s life; children necessarily think upon, and desire
to imitate, the conduct of those whose power seems so unlimited to
them. The daily example set before the child, and the character of the
motive from which he sees that everybody expects others to act,
determine whether the child thinks only of what it can get in this
world for itself, or knows that it has a friend whose good will is worth
more than all else, on comparison with pleasing whom all earthly
pleasures are as dust in the balance. If the child sees no one doubts
but that the unseen distinction between right and wrong is more im
portant than the distinction between pain and pleasure, which is tem
porary and of this animal life, it learns to think more of the spiritual
than of what is seen and felt. In a man, the desire to serve our heavenly
Father, and please Him always, is the true source of action; but a
child is, by God’s providence, surrounded by a parable which brings
him gradually to feel this ; he gladly, and without being provoked to
any opposition, feels that he is entirely dependent on a father’s love, and
the desire to please and make some return to him is the natural motive
to encourage. If you .talk to a child of what he owes to God, he is
awed into a kind of acquiescence, and feels a painful restraint which he
feels relief in throwing off. But the care and love of his parents is a
thing not far from him, on which thought is easy and pleasant. But
the parable must precede its interpretation, through early life the
motive must be developed of striving to please father ; and if fathers
are not always all they should be, nothing is more effective to humanise
them than to find their children looking up to find them what they
should be ; fathers’ love for their children deepens as they become used
to them, and here as everywhere what a man voluntarily forces him
self to at first finally becomes habitual to him. But in bringing a
child to believe in his father’s love, it is not necessary to make him
repeat correct explanations how all the seniors of the family are one,
whose orders he is equally bound to obey, and yet fellow-workers each
in his own place, or to define the moment at which his father’s love
was first provoked towards him, whether it was the cause of the mother’s
love or was caused by it. The tree of knowledge of theology stands side
by side with the tree of life; but the one bears the words of Jesus—its
twelve differing fruits are each different from the rest, but they all,
and even the leaves, are for the healing of the nations; the other the
traditions and interpretations of men more subtle than the rest. If we
search our writings, thinking that in them we have eternal life, instead
of having for their office to witness to the Desire of all nations, we shall
not come to Him. We do as Peter in his ignorance, who would have
built tabernacles for his law, and prophets side by side with Jesus.
But He will yet be found alone, to abide with those who obey the
heavenly voice which rings in every heart: this man, this perfect
human life, you see in its daily detail. He is my beloved Son. Hear
Him.
Sjpotiiswoode d Co., Printers, Nev:-street Square and Parliament Street.
�
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Wastethrifts and workmen, of the mode of producing them, and their relative value to the community
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Brandreth, Henry
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Place of Publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Printed by Spottiswoode & Co., London. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. At head of first page: 19 Finsbury Circus, E.C.: April 1868.
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1868
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G5383
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Labour
Social problems
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Text
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English
Education
Labour Supply
Poverty
Social Conditions-Great Britain-19th Century
Work Ethic
Working Class-Great Britain
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Text
PRICE ONE PENNY
THE FACTS
- ABOUT THE -
UNEMPLOYED.
An Appeal and a Warning.
BY
'
iV A
*
-Me ONE
cUaiM
i &\
MIDDLE-CLASS.#^
OF <• THE
:o:
Beholding with the dark eye of a seer
The evil days to gifted souls foreshown,
Foretelling them to those who will not hear,
As in the old days, till the hour will come
When truth shall strike their eye through many a tear.
—Prophecy of Dante.
:o:~
LONDON:
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
AND
W. L. ROSENBERG, 261, EAST TENTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY.
1886.
�To sleep in when their pain is done.
These were not fit for God to save.
As naked hell-fire is the sun
In their eyes, living, and when dead
These have not where to lay their head.—Swinburne.
To bring these hordes of outcast captainless soldiers under due captaincy ? This is
really the question of questions, on the answer to which turns, among other things, the
fate of all Governments, constitutional and other—the possibility of their continuing to
exist or the impossibility. Captainless, uncommanded, these wretched outcast
‘ soldiers,’ since they cannot starve, needs must become banditti, street barricaders—
destroyers of every Government that cannot make life human to them.—Thomas Carlyle.
Socialism, in that sense, is the application of the power and resources of the State
to benefit one particular class, especially the most needy. There stares us in the face the
fact that the duty of maintaining the most necessitous class of the country by the
public funds has, for three centuries, formed part of the law of the land. That is so
strong a fact that it vitiates every argument which we can use from what is called sheer
principle against measures of time.—Lord Salisbury, 30th September, 1885.
The typhoon itself is not wilder than human creatures when once their passions are
stirred. You cannot check them ; but if you are brave you can guide them wisely.
—Froude.
People are all very glad to shut their eyes. It gives them a very simple pleasure
when they can forget that the bread that we eat, and the quiet of the family and all that
embellishes life and makes it worth having, have to be purchased by death—by the
deaths of men wearied out with labour, and the deaths of those criminals called revolu
tionaries, and the deaths of those revolutionaries called criminals.—R. L. Stevenson.
Hyde Park in the season is the great rotatory form of one vast squirrel cage:
round and round it go the idle company, in their reversed streams, urging themselves to
their necessary exercise. When they rest from their squirrellian revolutions, and die in
the Lcrd and their works do follow them, these are what will follow them. They took
the bread and milk and meat from the people of their fields ; they gave it to feed, and
retain here in their service, this fermenting mass of unhappy human beings—news
mongers, novel-mongers, picture-mongers, poison-drink-mongers, lust and death mon
gers, the whole smoking mass of it one vast dead-marine store shop—accumulation of
wreck of the Dead Sea, with every activity in it a form of putrefaction.—John Rushin.
Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for youf miseries that shall come upon
you. Behold the hire of the labourers, who have reaped down your fields, which is of
you kept back by fraud, crieth ; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered
into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.—St. Janies.
Yet there is a pause, a stillness before the storm ; lo, there is blackness above, not
a leaf quakes ; the winds are stayed, that the voice of God’s warning may be heard.
Hear it now, O chosen city in the chosen land ! Repent and forsake evil; do justice ;
love mercy : put away all uncleanness from among you.—George Eliot.
In God’s name, let all who hear nearer and nearer the hungry moan of the storm
and the growl of the breakers, speak out! The past, wise with the sorrow and desola
tion of ages, from amid her shattered fanes of wolf housing palaces, echoes speak ! But
alas! the Constitution, and the Hon. Mr. Bagowind, M.P., say, Be dumb.—J. R. Lowell.
Balance the two things against each other. At present you have what you call
■“ freedom of trade” in these respects—i.e., every capitalist has almost unlimited scope
for his “ arrangements,” so as to screw out of his workmen the largest possible amount
of labour for the smallest possible remuneration. But then what have you to do with
it ? A population becoming more and more wretched, more and more vicious, more
and more discontented, and who only need, at any moment, an able leader to be pre
pared to revolutionise the Empire.—Remedies for the Perils of the Nation (1844).
The Writer will be glad to hear from anyone who agrees with his conclusions.
�THE FACTS ABOUT THE UNEMPLOYED.
OR years past the optimist philosopher and the complacent
statistician have declared that the material condition of the
masses of the British nation has been steadily improving. But
hard facts have a logic of their own, before which pretty
theories and judicious compilations must give way when they are found
out not to agree with the actual circumstances. Gradually the impos
sibility of taking a rose-coloured view of the condition of the people has
forced itself upon the intelligent public. The occurrences of last winter
arrested attention, but the eventful struggles of political life have caused
forgetfulness of the truth that whatever changes have taken place on
the surface one thing remains unchanged—-the monotonous misery of
the struggle for a living amongst a large proportion of our countrymen.
So short are men’s memories, so prone are they, in their suspicion of the
exaggerations of hysterical philanthropists and unscrupulous agitators,
to discount estimates of distress, that it is necessary to repeat here
the deliberate statements of officials writing in cold blood.
It is impossible to give details as to the whole country, but those for
the metropolis will serve as a guide, and are by far the most important
on account of the danger arising from the congestion of misery in this
huge city, where the striking contrast of squalid destitution and immense
wealth is ever present. But if the numbers of the Unemployed in
London in the winter of 1885 were greater than elsewhere, the misery
has been even more intense in many provincial towns where the muni
cipal institutions and local public feeling have enabled earnest if
inadequate efforts to be made to mitigate the distress. In Hartlepool,
Gateshead, Newport (Monmouth), Brighton, Gloucester, Sheffield,
Jarrow, Northampton, Southampton, Pontypridd, Liverpool, Ashtonunder-Lyne, Salford, Wolverhampton, Dover, Burton-on-Trent, Derby.
Walsall, Stoke-upon-Trent and many other towns all the horrors or
famine have been experienced. This, autumn, threats of reduction of
wages and dismissal of “ hands ” show only too clearly to those who
will take warning that before Christmas 1886 the destitution will be
yet more widespread.
At the end of January, 1886, the number of persons applying for relief
at the workhouses of London showed no very great increase. From
this it was falsely argued that no exceptional distress could exist. Bu
*
it is the fact that the severity with which the Poor Law has recently
been administered denies any relief to persons under 60 years of age
who are free from disease. Such “ able-bodied persons ” are allowed
no succour, save on condition of entering the living tomb of the work
house, which means severance of all family ties, perpetual confinement,
�4
diet worse than is allowed to many criminals, and the abandonment of
all hope of being anything but a pauper for the rest of life. It is true
that Guardians are allowed to give relief to “ able-bodied ” males out
side the workhouse, on condition of their undergoing the labour test.
In actual practice last winter this meant that in three unions skilled
artizans, mechanics, clerks, and shop assistants were asked to break
from 7 to 9 bushels of stone for a reward varying from 4d. in money,
4d. in groceries, and 2 lbs. of bread to gd. in money and 2 lbs. of bread.
Thus it is small wonder that, in spite of their distress, very few beside
the ordinary hardened paupers applied to the guardians for the only
forms of relief allowed, viz., imprisonment without hard labour in the
workhouse or criminal tasks in the stoneyard. In Westminster,
where piecework was offered, and men were able to earn from 2S. to
2S. gd. per day, the work was eagerly applied for.
Thus the number of applications for relief showed little increase, and
this fact was vaunted in the usual way. But when, in February, 1886,
Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, as President of the Local Government Board,
instituted enquiries as to the extent and nature of distress, he received
the replies given below.
*
They are very significant, for in spite of the
horror of “ the house ” entertained by the deserving poor, the number
of persons in receipt of relief in London in September, 1886,
exceeds by fourteen hundred the number who had been driven
to the Unions at the same season last year. If September, 1885,
was the precursor of a winter of such appalling destitution, clearly the
following statements only faintly foreshadow the probable sufferings of
the workers in the Metropolis during the winter of 1886-1887.
REPORTS OF GUARDIANS.
4
Ik
w
St. Mary Abbotts, Kensington.—-Doubtless exceptional distress exists among the class
■who prefer to suffer the severest privation rather than apply for Poor Law Relief.
Paddington. Distress thought to prevail amongst the classes just above the pauper
ranks.
Fulham. The medical officers and relieving officers allege that a great deal of distress
does exist.
St. Luke, Chelsea. Distress not excessive.
St. George, Hanover Sq. No exceptional distress.
Westminster. No more than the normal amount of distress.
St. Marylebone. Has been an increase of distress.
St. John, Hampstead. Believe distress great and quite unusual.
St. Pancras. Some increase of distress experienced by the better class of workmen.
St. Mary, Islington. More distress prevailing than usual.
Hackney. No doubt considerable distress chiefly among people who will not apply for
relief unless under very extreme circumstances.
Strand. More than ordinary distress prevails amongst classes who do not usually
apply for relief.
St. Leonard, Shoreditch. Exceptional number of struggling poor in distress and yet
do not seek relief until actually obliged by acute suffering.
Bethnal Green. Of opinion that there is a large amount of distress not brought
under notice of Guardians.
Whitechapel, Much distress of a chronic or intermittent character.
St. George’s-in-the-East. Increase of the always considerable distress.
Stepney. Distress undoubtedly prevailing.
Mile End Old Town. Working people experiencing great privation.
St. Saviour’s. Large numbers of able bodied men with families out of work.
* These extracts are taken from the Blue Book, Return “Pauperism and Distress.”
Printed by order of the House of Commons, 8th May, 1886. Price is. 9d., or second
hand copies, for which Members of Parliament apparently can find no use, can be pro
cured for a few pence.
�St. Olave’s Distress slightly more prevalent, about 1,100 men out of employ.
St. Mary, Lambeth, Severe and unusual distress among ordinary selfmaintaining
working people.
St. Giles, Camberwell. Large amount of distress among people who will not seek
parochial relief.
Wandsworth and Clapham. Exceptional distress.'
Lewisham. 21 i honest and industrious workingmen compelled to seek employment in
labour yard.
Woolwich. Exceptional distress among families who will not come on the parish.
Holborn. A large number of able-bodied men with families applying for relief.
In addition to these answers from the Guardians of the Poor, the
following replies were sent by
VESTRIES & DISTRICT BOARDS OF WORKS.
St. Mary Abbotts, Kensington. Unquestionably a large number of the labouring
class out of work.
Fulham. Special distress is existing.
Chelsea. No exceptional distress with which we are unable to cope.
Westminster. Persuaded that distress is exceptional.
St. Marylebone. Believe there is considerable distress amongst persons who do not
or would not apply for relief.
St. John, Hampstead. Exceptional amount of distress.
Islington. A very great amount of distress.
St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields. Painfully recognize the fact that large numbers are |out
of employment.
Holborn. Distress exceptional.
St. Leonard, Shoreditch. Undoubtedly considerable distress owing to lack of em
ployment.
Bethnal Green. Believe there is considerable distress.
Whitechapel. Exceptional distress exists.
St. George’s-in-the-East. A great deal of distress. Much acute suffering. Signs of
still further diminution of labour.
Mile End Old Town. Undoubtedly a great number of mechanics out of work.
Poplar. Distress exceptional among better class of artizans. In many trades lack of
employment, seems no hope in the future. Of 61 lads at Board School, fathers of
22 out of work.
Newington. Distress exceptional. Chiefly among artizan and labouring classes.
St. Olave’s, Southwark. Distress always throughout the year.
Bermondsey. Unemployed labourers somewhat more numerous.
Rotherhithe. Widespread distress. Men unable to obtain work for many weeks past.
Lambeth. In surburbs many employes out of work.
Wandsworth. In Battersea, distress exceptional. In Clapham, very marked. Putney,
many more out of work than for ten years past. Streatham, distress not very
exceptional. Wandsworth, a great many men out of work.
Camberwell. Great and exceptional distress especially among mechanics, clerks, un
skilled workers, &c., who are not accustomed to apply to guardians.
Plumstead. Exceptional distress.
Do these dry statements convey to the reader any idea of the suffering
they represent ? Can an average member of the classes who control the
domestic policy of this wealthy nation, figure to himself accurately what
being “out of work” even for a few weeks means to men who have to
live by selling their labour ? To these, hard times do not occasion
merely a diminution of an income ample to provide all the comforts and
luxuries of existence, but a life and death struggle with starvation. To
commence full of hope to search for fresh employment: to gradually sell
or pawn the few sticks of furniture which convert the single room,
whither poverty has driven you, into a home; to blister the feet
in walking from factory gate to factory gate only to meet with disap
pointment and often with hard words, while hope deferred makes the
heart sick and want of nourishment enfeebles the frame: to see your
�6
wife sinking for lack of food and to send your children to the Board
School without a bit of breakfast: to know that as you grow each day
more gaunt in the face, more shabby in outward' appearance, more
emaciated in physique, there is less and less chance of getting employ
ment ; to return faint and footsore after a long day’s tramp and hear
those you love best on earth crying for food : to have to answer their
moans by telling them that because you are not allowed to work for
your living, Society has doomed them to yet another twenty-tour hours
of starvation ; despairing, to beg from the stranger in the street and be
met with a contemptuous dole or pitiless suspicion : to ponder in cold and
hunger whether the theft that would save your family from slow
starvation is a crime or a duty: to be restrained from suicide only by
the certainty that your death must drive your wife and daughters
to swell the ghastly army of degraded womanhood that parades the
streets of midnight London ; to feel drawing ever nearer the day when
you will be driven into the workhouse to lose for ever freedom and inde
pendence, to part from your wife as surely as if the grave were closing
over her and to condemn your children to be brought up as paupers : to
feel, through all this, that you have done nothing to deserve it—this
was the lot of hundreds of thousands of Englishmen last winter. It is
the certain doom of thousands more during the next few months.
And terrible as is the state of affairs revealed by these official facts,
gloomy as is the prospect they hold out for the coming winter, it is con
fidently declared by those who made a house to house visitation to
collect statistics that they did not adequately depict the destitution
which prevailed last year, and which will recur in an aggravated form in
the next few months. A Special Commissioner of the Pall Mall Gazette
visited a typical East End street, and declared that more than half the
male adults were out of work. Two members of the Holborn Board of
Guardians, Messrs. A. Hoare and S. Brighty, have testified on oath that
when a Committee of that Board, mistrusting the reports of the Reliev
ing Officers, made a personal inspection, they found in many streets of
Holborn and Clerkenwell 30 to 40 per cent, of the population out of
work, and the results of the enforced idleness of the bread winners on
the health of their families was so terrible that the Board were obliged
to strain the Infirmary Relief Regulations, so as to treat sheer starvation
as a prevalent disease !
The above undeniable facts show that the first necessity is an inde
pendent and trustworthy report as to the numbers of men now out of
work. The investigation made in a slovenly way by Mr. Chamberlain
after the windows of the Carlton Club were smashed should now be
made in a careful and deliberate manner. This need not entail much
expense, at any rate in comparison with what continued neglect of such
suffering, if it really does exist, will cost the country. The Local Govern
ment Board should at once require the Guardians of all the Unions to appoint
a small committee of their members to visit every house in a dozen streets in the
poorer quarters of their districts, and render a report showing the number of men
out of work, how many weeks1 work each has done in the last 3 months, his trade,
the number of children dependent upon his wages for food, and finally whether he
would be willing to perform useful labour during eight hours in each day for the
equivalent of 20s. -per week.
*
______________ ___
* This wage is taken as being 37J per cent, less than the average income of a working
class family, according to the estimate of Professor Leone Levi, and, therefore, too
little to attract labour from private enterprises.
�7
This could be done in a few days, and should the event prove that
distress amongst the deserving poor is severe, wide spread, and increas
ing, there can be no excuse for refusing to take steps for their relief. To
begin with, it is intolerable that, under the exceptional circumstances,
th sturdy independence which leads the sufferers to dread becoming
paupers should be broken down. It is sheer brutality to give the Unem
ployed no choice but the workhouse, or a useless, and in the long run,
costly labour test, if it be made manifest that the distressed are
really skilful and hard working men. For the immediate pressure
it will be necessary to place a certain amount of discretionary
power in the hands of the Committees of the Guardians, to
enable them, when they are satisfied that the suffering is genuine,
to give out relief to men out of work. This should be strictly
limited to relief in kind. Doles of money would inevitably go straight
from the hands of men out of work, who are naturally in arrears with
their rent, straight into the pockets of their landlords, too many of whom
are on these Parochial Boards. The best form which the relief could
take, would be the provision of a free dinner to children in the
Board Schools. Whatever may have been the crimes or follies of their
fathers, these children have done nothing to deserve the tortures that
the poverty, whether deserved or not, of their parents inflicts upon
them. They cannot be “ pauperised ” by the enjoyment of food from
public funds, and the interest of the future of our country demands that
thousands of children should not be again forced to starve for a few
months, and so contract the physical, and consequent mental and moral
infirmities, which will prove so great a burden on the next generation.
It is undoubtedly true that the endowments and charities of the City
parishes would be ample and sufficient to cover the cost of providing a
free meal to all the Board School children in London. These funds *
are squandered in a variety of foolish ways, there being now no con
gregations in the City Churches, and no poor resident in the City
parishes. The best interests of England will be better served by secur
ing the nourishment of starveling infants than by maintaining clerical
sinecures, in order that sermons of thanksgiving may be preached to
empty aisles on the anniversary of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, or
of the detection of Guy Fawkes. Much of this money is already spent
in providing free dinners, not in Board Schools for the children of the
poor, but at the Star and Garter at Richmond, or the Trafalgar at Green
wich, for the officials who administer the funds.
But if the distress be as wide spread as is supposed, it is impossible
to provide for it from local resources, more especially as the demand
would be heaviest where the ratepayers are poorest. In the working
class districts of London a large proportion of the rates are contributed
by persons who are largely dependent, as lodging-house keepers, small
tradesmen, &c., on the welfare of the working classes, and the state
of affairs which denies the workers a chance of earning wages, means, to
the poorer ratepayers, rents in arrears, and trade reduced to the vanish
ing point. If on the top of this Poor Rates were largely increased,
thousands, who are now by the most strenuous exertion keeping out of
the pauper class, would be overwhelmed in one common ruin. It is, be
sides, absurd that able-bodied workmen, who only ask to be allowed to
See Reports of the School Board for London on the matter.
�8
-earn their living, should be compelled to be idle when there is so much
necessary and productive work undone. The Embankment of the poor
man’s side of the Thames, and the building by public bodies of whole
some working class dwellings on vacant sites throughout London, would
provide really useful work for hundreds of men. The demolition of the
buildings and the preparation of the sites of Clerkenwell Prison and the
House of Detention for artizans and labourers’ dwellings would provide
employment for a large amount of unskilled labour. The reclamation of
*
waste lands and foreshores} would entail little expenditure beyond what
was actually paid in wages for manual labour. If England can recruit
and equip her sons to defend the suspicious interests of bondholders in
Egypt, if ^10,000,000 of British gold can be poured into the sands of
the Soudan with no other result than the destruction of human life and
happiness, surely even a large expenditure of wealth in the effort to save
life is justifiable !
But this State or Municipal organisation of labour can be done
effectively and economically if the will is not wanting. When similar
works were undertaken in Lancashire during the cotton famine by Sir
Robert Rawlinson, £1,500,000 of public money were profitably expended,
and though the bulk of the workers were factory hands unaccustomed
to outdoor labour, thec^ztagHaid out in plant and superintendence
amounted to only 6-3 of the total expenditure. The attempts made at
the end of last winter in a few London parishes on a smaller scale
show that the thing can be successfully done, if it is energetically
undertaken.} But so slow are the officials to move that public opinion has
* A company is now building artizans dwellings in Central London, and has proved
the possibility of clearing 8 per cent, on capital by providing houseroom on highlyrented ground at an average rent of 2s. 6d. per room. Nothing has been done t6
provide the workers with wholesome lodging within their means since the report of the
Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes, and the passing of the Act
of August, 1885, which allows the issue of loans at 3J per cent, interest for this purpose.
The Act has remained a dead letter ; but if its provisions were enforced, the money
raised, and the work done without the intervention of a contractor, the saving of his pro
fits would allow the lower rate of interest to be paid if only half the rent were demanded
for accommodation much better than is offered by the above-named commercial under
taking. But public bodies, many of whose members are pecuniarily concerned in their
own vested interests in the extorting of high rents for unwholesome tenements, are not
likely to encourage this form of competition save under tremendous pressure.
f At a recent meeting of the British Association at Barrow-in-Furness it was stated
that 40,000 acres of land round a neighbouring estuary would pay to reclaim.
+ See the Report of M. Geo. R, Strachan, Surveyor of Chelsea, in the Pall Mall
Gazette, October 2,1886, from which the following are extracts. .
“In response to the public demand, in the early spring of this year, the Chelsea vestry
on the 20th of February last instructed me to pave the macadamized part , of King s
Road with wood, and further instructed me to employ and pay the men without the
intervention of a contractor. The pay was to be 4d. per hour, and of this two shillings
was to be paid each night in order to get the men food. It was questioned whether
there would be 100 applicants for the work, but on the day appointed to take the names
no less than 300 were at hand. There is much discussion as to a test for distinguishing
genuine cases of distress from the loafers and the ne’er-do-weels. I venture to suggest
that a man who will hack up a macadam road like King’s Road for 4d. per hour has
earned the right to be considered a genuine case. The number of men employed was
increased to 230, among whom, to my own knowledge, were carpenters, , plasterers,
bricklayers, fitters, shoemakers, watchmakers, printers, hatters, gentlemen s servants,
and tailors, as well as general labourers, each of whom commenced work at 4-d. per
hour. The severe work tried many of the men at the beginning. When paying the
men each night their two shillings, I noticed that many of them had. been punished by
their particular job, and where it was possible they were given a lighter job the next
�9
to be heated to a dangerous degree before they can be made aware
that the punctual drawing of their salaries and pigeon-holing of all com
munications is not their whole duty. The pressure necessary to stir them
entails mass meetings of hungry and wretched men, injudicious inter
ference by officious policemen, and then, perhaps, riot and bloodshed,
for which the whole responsibility rests on those who will not hear any
other appeal.
But these measures are merely stop-gaps. Extension of out-door
relief and provision of employment- by public bodies will prevent deaths
from starvation for the time, but they will do nothing to avert the
recurrence of a state of affairs which would be an amusing satire on
human intelligence if it were not for its tragic side. On all hands over
production, so it is said ; too great an abundance of all the commodities
which labour makes. Yet in every great town threatening crowds of
workers complain that this very superfluity of the good things of
this world keeps them in want of the merest necessaries of life. The
means of producing wealth have been so improved and multiplied that
it is impossible for the workers to get enough to keep them and their
families in health. The burden of the evidence taken by the Royal
Commission on Depression of Trade is, not that the volume of trade is
decreasing, but that the intense competition is ruining every industry.
In the decade 1874 t° T883 all the great industries of the country showed
a great increase of production, with only a trifling increase, or even a
decrease, in the number of persons employed.
*
That is to say, im
proved methods had enabled each man to produce more, and had con
sequently denied work to many. Thus it is certain that the distress we
are now witnessing is no passing symptom, but destined to increase in
intensity with every advance in the modes of production.
day. At first they did not earn their money, but as they got food into them they visibly
improved. Where a man was found capable of better work than hacking the road up
he was put to mixing the concrete, for which he received 5d. per hour. When it came
to laying the blocks, the artisans among them were advanced to that work, and were
then paid the usual wage of a pavior—9d. per hour...........................One scarcely knew the
men again. Nine weeks’ work had enabled them to turn round in the world. They had
rescued their clothes, which in many cases had been “ put away,” and there they were,
a body of contented men, forming a striking contrast to the hungry men who struggled
for work when the names were taken down. Altogether, a sum of £2,000 was circulated
to these men as wages, and I have no hesitation whatever in saying that it gave assist
ance to men who were deserving of consideration, and that it saved many a wife and
her little ones from hunger and suffering.
But did it pay ? Yes. These roads cost gs. rod. and gs. yd. per square yard
respectively, all told, which included superintendence, printing, testing, and a substan
tial allowance for the depreciation of plant and tools The price could not be bettered
for the quality of the work. The work is satisfactory as regards execution. The vestry
and the parishoners were so satisfied with the works that they resolved to continue
them, and I am now engaged in paving Pont Street with wood under the conditions
named. There is an eagerness for work that is equal to that at the beginning of the year,
and though the men are not so starved as they were then, yet they are out of work. If
300 men—all Chelsea men—were wanted, they would be forthcoming in two days.
This opens out a serious prospect. Should the winter be a severe one it will be
necessary to relieve the distress. I submit that there are few better ways than by
employing the men in useful public works. Our wood pavement experiment is only one
class of work. It would be a desirable precaution for all the local authorities to look
up the works they could put in hand if the emergency arises, so as to be ready.
The surveyor who has such work entrusted to him has a strange team to drive over a
new course, and he cannot have his rem hand or his whip hand pulled at, if he is to get
over it successfully. He should be given a free hand while the work is on, and made
to render a strict account when it is done.”
* See "The Emigration Fraud Exposed,” by H. M. Hyndman.
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*
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�IO
Mr. Hugh Owen, C.B., the Secretary to the Local Government
Board, has pointed out, very wisely from his point of view, the danger
of allowing the Unemployed to entertain the idea that it is the duty of
Government to provide them with wages. And certainly, relief works,
whether undertaken by the National or Municipal authorities, must
come to an end sooner or later. If the stress of poverty passes away
the industrial regiments that have been enrolled may be disbanded with
impunity. But should the permanent causes which have brought about
scarcity of employment remain in action, should the distress therefore
continue to augment, the State will have on its hands an ever-increasing
army of desperate men who have been taught that if they agitate fiercely
enough the State will provide for them, It is not a pleasant prospect.
Surely it is wiser, while undertaking special measures for the momentary
pressure, to at once go boldly to the root of the matter.
The question is really the one with with which the ruling classes are
now face to face in all countries in the world. “ Why are the workers
poor? ” This is the riddle of the modern Sphinx, which our civilization
has to answer or perish. Poverty, the material degradation of a large
proportion of the population, means that long hours of work for low
wages are alternated with these long spells of want of employment and
sheer starvation. There is one way and one way only to put a check on
this—the establishment of a shorter working day—and this can be
best effected by the
1. Reduction of the hours of labour in all Government
employments to eight a day.
2. The prohibition by law of more than 48 hours per week
being exacted from their employes by any railway, tramway,
or omnibus company.
3. The establishment of communications with foreign
countries in order that an international agreement may be
arrived at for curtailing, in each State, the hours of labour
in manufactures and industries which are affected by inter
national competition.
Some objections will be raised to these proposals, but there is not
the slightest doubt that any Governmeet which enforced the first of
them would be amply supported by public opinion. The public have
too often lately supped on horrors provided by the graphic descriptions
of the life of the poor not to be willing that any practical steps should
be taken for their relief. It only needs to be pointed out that, for
instance, plenty of Government work is given out to contractors who
over-drive their men, that many of the uniforms of our soldiers, police
men, postmen, etc., are made on the sweating system,” for men of
every class and every shade of political belief to unite in declaring that
as citizens they object to what, as individuals, they may themselves be
forced by competition to do, and that even if low profits drive the
employing class to reduce wages and lengthen hours, this wealthy
nation shall not take advantage of the necessities of the poor to grind
their lives out of them. This one measure would at once give employ
ment to many thousands who would be called in to fill the vacancies
created.
But some difficulties would be experienced in passing an Act
�11
of Parliament compulsorily reducing the hours of adult males in
the employment of companies of capitalists. Such interference has
always been deprecated, by those interested in maintaining long hours
and low wages, on the ground that if the men really desire it they would
combine and enforce a reduction through a trade union by strikes etc.
To this the reply is : that large numbers being out of work, the em
ployers could readily fill the places of any number of men who struck for
a reduction of hours : that the same circumstance drains the funds of all
existing trade societies as they are also benefit societies and pay all
members out of work, and therefore cripples them for undertaking
*
strikes ; that strikes are a barbarous method of effecting such a change
and to be successful must be backed up by at any rate a certain amount
of intimidation, boycotting etc. Much vigorous opposition will be raised
by the shareholders in these enterprises and their numerous supporters
in Parliament. They undoubtedly wall suffer by being deprived of
the right to make profits by overworking their employes, but it is not
possible to undo injustice and remedy hardships without appearing to
injure someone. Advantages to the community at large must be
weighed and a decision taken on that ground. There are some 360,000
men employed, for instance, on the railway system of this country. Their
average hours are 12 per dayt and their average wages are under 20s. a
week. The compulsory reduction of the hours to 48 per week would
therefore mean the taking on of 180,000 workers and the expenditure as
wages of nine millions of pounds which now go into the shareholders
pockets as dividends. This is less than one per cent, of the capital
invested in railways in England. Now admitting that individual cases
ofhardship will occur, but also remembering the awful and wide-spread
distress which is now devastating the “ lower orders,” the question for
the community is whether one per cent, interest is worth more than the
devotion of that sum to wages would effect, i.e. increased leisure for 360,000
men, and a chance of earning a living to 180,000. There can be no
question as to the opinion of the working class on the point, and even
the well-to-do may see it in a different light, when it is borne in upon
them that some hundreds of thousands of unemployed men must
somehow be provided for, either by charity, private or public, or by legis
lation, and that it may be cheaper, easier, and safer to meet such a pro
posal as this half-way than to seek to evade the inevitable.
This applies still more strongly to tramway and omnibus companies.
They exact longer hours and their victims are consequently still less
able to combine, and for unskilled work such as theirs the competition,
even at such miserable wages, is terrific.
There are many other trades and occupations in which the enforce
ment of a shorter day of labour is necessary. Where competition has
reached a point when its disastrous effects are patent to all, when
individuals are powerless to control it, it surely becomes the duty of the
* It is on this account that the Amalgamated Society of Engineers had a deficit of
over ^43,000 last year. The Union of Operative Bakers cannot prevent many employers
exacting 18 hours work a day. The Boiler Makers show 23I per cent, of their members
out of work and ^45,000 paid to them; the Brass-founders (Liverpool), 17 per cent,
unemployed, the Amalgamated Carpenters, 18 per cent. See Returns “ Pauperism
and Distress.”
f The average hours of drivers are 10, goods guards n to 12, passenger guards 12
to 15, porters all work 12 and over. For further particulars see a pamphlet by T. Mann,
entitled “ What an Eight Hour Working Day Means.”
�12
organised community to fix a limit beyond which the excesses of com
petition must not go. In the cases mentioned above the difficulty is
not complicated by the presence of foreign or oriental underpaid labour.
There can be no doubt whatever that under what is called Free Trade
“ the unrestricted competition to which Parliament in its wisdom has
decided that this country shall be subjected ”—the market of the world
will confer its custom on those countries where, other things being equal,
labour is cheapest, and that our artizans will some day have to accept
the wage of Belgians, and Italians, or English manufacturers will be
beaten. And there is nothing more certain than that in each of the
foreign countries, whose competition we may have to dread, there is a
strong feeling in favour of international legislation on these labour
questions. To that end communications should at once be made to
foreign governments, and should they be unwilling to come to reasonable
terms, it will certainly be found in England, as in every country where
the workers have any voice in national policy, that the democracy is in
favour of a war of tariffs to coerce the recalcitrant countries.
There is one objection from the worker’s point of view w'hich remains
to be met. Reduction of hours would no doubt provide work for those
out of employment, but would it not reduce the average rate of wages ?
Especially where men are paid by the hour it seems on the face of it so
certain that a week of 48 instead of 60 hours must mean a proportionate
reduction of income. But this is not so. The main factor in the pres
sure which keeps wages down is the eagerness of men who are out of
work to accept it on any terms. The employer, perhaps smarting from a
diminution of his normal income, feels justified in reducing wages when
he sees that thousands would be only too glad to be taken on even at
the reduced rate. As long as “ the reserve army of labour ” is there to
draw upon, unscrupulous employers are in a position to do exactly what
they please, and, by the action of competition, force better men to have
recourse to the same villanies in order to escape bankruptcy. If the
Unemployed are provided for, and the pressure on the labour market
reduced, the same laws of supply and demand which now make the
capitalist the absolute arbiter in matters of work and wages will then
destroy his present advantage. Every man who is looking for work is
an ally of the capitalist and an enemy of his fellows. The reduction of
hours, by absorbing the Unemployed, will inevitably raise wages until
further developments of machinery and invention increase the produc
tivity of labour, and bring about a repetition of the miseries of the last
few months.
Not the least significant fact about the recent agitation on the
subject of the Unemployed is that it has been allowed to remain entirely
in the hands of a body of men who form the Social-Democratic Federa
tion, the oldest and best known of the English Socialist organisations.
Of these men Mr. Geo. R. Sims, whose knowledge of the poor in Lon
don is great, says that their influence over the workers is enormous,
and Mr; Arnold White, the well-known philanthropist, admits, while
attacking them zealously, that “ they are slowly and surely winning the
confidence of the masses.” From time to time their doings are chro
nicled in the papers, but some of the following facts should be more
widely known.
1
�13
On Monday, February Sth, 1886, a large meeting of men out of work
was held in Trafalgar Square. Speeches were delivered by some Social
Democrats, who afterwards headed a portion of the large crowd towards
Hyde Park. On the way stones were thrown at the Reform and Carlton
CIttbs in Pall Mall. The accidental absence of police showed that this
Could be done with impunity, and portions of the crowd broke hundreds
Of pounds worth of plate glass, ill-treated the passers-by, and sacked two
shops in Piccadilly, and several in May Fair, before they were dispersed.
On the following day London was in a panic, but no further riots
occurred. Four of the Social Democrats, who were reported to have
used very strong language, were indicted for seditious speaking and
inciting to violence, and after five days’ trial at the Old Bailey were
acquitted on April 10th, Mr. Justice Cave stating in his summing up that
they deserved “ some considerable credit ” for their vain efforts to bring
the dangerous nature of the distress among the working classes to the
notice of the proper authorities.
So much is notorious. What is unknown is the real origin aud
meaning of occurrences without parallel in modern times.
The
following summary can be readily verified from reports of the meetings
and of the testimony of witnesses at the trial:—
In the winter of 1883, when the distress began to be seriously felt, the
Social-Democrats made themselves conspicuous by vehement attacks on
the supporters of emigration as a panacea for working class poverty.
During that and the following winter they repeatedly carried amendments
by unanimous votes in the meetings convened by the advocates of
emigration. This made them very popular all over the country, especially
in East London, and gave them an influence they were not slow to utilise.
In February, 1885, the Social Democratic Federation convened a
meeting of the Unemployed (even then very numerous) on the Thames
Embankment, whence a deputation proceeded to ask the Local
Government Board to urge various remedial measures for the distress of
the thousands stated to be then out of work. In the absence of Sir Charles
Dilke, the Under Secretary, Mr. G. W. E. Russell, stated that nothing
could be done by the central authority at Whitehall, and advised the
deputation to “ bring salutary pressure to bear on the local authorities.”
This advice was not immediately followed, probably owing to the
approach of summer and the consequent diminution of the suffering.
But early in 1886 proceedings were again commenced, and the methods
taken by a branch of the same organization in Clerkenwell were
closely followed in Marylebone, Hampstead, Bermondsey, Hackney,
Westminster, Limehouse, Battersea, and other parts of London, but
the description of the one agitation applies with more or less force to
all. Determined to put “ pressure ” on the Guardians of the Holborn
Union, the members of this body instituted a house-to-house census of
the poorer parts of the district, in order to satisfy themselves as to the
distress. They summoned the Local Members of Parliament (one a
Conservative, the other a Liberal), who declared themselves willing, but
impotent, to effect any remedial legislation. On January 27 a deputation
attended the meeting of the Guardians, and pointed out—(a) That their
investigations had showed 40 per cent, of the bread-winners to be out of
employment ; (&) That the workhouses were overcrowded ; (c) That in
accordance with the strict regulations denying outdoor relief to persons
under 60 years of age and free from disease, succour was refused to the
�x4
sufferers; (d) That the reports of the Relieving Officers showing that
comparatively few persons applied for relief were misleading, since artizans out of work did not apply : firstly, because they were not of the
“ pauper class,” secondly, because they were well aware that application
for relief would be vain, unless they entered the workhouse and broke up
their homes. They further demanded that —(i) The Guardians should
personally investigate the distress; (2) Should apply to the Local
Government Board to relax the rules, and grant discretionary relieving
powers during the winter; (3) Should urge the Vestries and Boards of
Works in the districts to employ men on any works of real utility, such
as artizan’s dwellings, baths and washhouses, or street improvements ;
(4) Should insist on the Metropolitan Board of Works carrying out the
recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Work
ing Classes by clearing the sites of Clerkenwell Prison and the House of
Detention, and erecting on these and other available sites working class
dwellings, to be let at the lowest rents which would cover the outlay ;
and (5.) Should try to procure the immediate commencement of the new
Admiralty and War Office proposed for Whitehall. The Guardians
listened very patiently, and there being some thousands of Unemployed
men outside their Board Room, decided to adopt all these proposals—with
the following results. They appointed a committee who made a houseto-house visitation in their locality, and found the severest privations,
and even starvation, being suffered, owing to lack of employment, by
hundreds of families of even the better-to-do artizan class. Of all this
no hint had been given in the reports of Relieving Officers and Local
Government Board Inspectors, who merely record the individuals who
apply for relief. The Local Government Board, or rather Mr. Joseph
Chamberlain, was not so far carried away by the impulses of the
“ political humanity,” on which he spoke so eloquently to working class
audiences during the electioneering campaign, as to relax the rules,
owing to the stringency of which so much patient misery had remained
unnoticed and unrelieved. A ‘‘labour test” was imposed, and the
skilled artizans and watchmakers of the district were invited to prove the
reality of their distress by breaking stones all day for a remuneration of
ninepence and two pounds of bread. Of the few who accepted this
test many suffered severely from cut faces and blistered hands. On
more than one occasion these men, who lost their right to vote by
entering the labour yard, broke into open revolt. But the majority said
that it would be just as pleasant to die of starvation outside the
stoneyard as inside.
Few practical steps of any use whatever were taken by the Vestries
or Metropolitan Board of Works.
The Members of Parliament for London, irrespective of party, were
summoned to an informal conference, which appointed a Committee.
After a delay of some two months the Committee reported that the dis
tress was exceptional, and that it was quite beyond their province and
powers as only a section of the Legislature to deal with it. With this
ended the interest displayed in the matter by members of Parliament,
for the proposal made by two Republican “ working class representa
tives/’ Mr. George Howell and Mr. Joseph Arch, that the Queen’s
Jubilee should be antedated by a year, in order that public festivities
and wasteful expenditure might improve trade, can only be regarded as
a piece of shameless sycophancy or ill-judged pleasantry.
�The Social Democrats, however, convened a meeting in Holborn
Town Hall on 3rd January, 1886, to which all Members of Parliament
for London were invited. With one consent they made excuse, and not
a single Member put in an appearance. The hall was crowded with men
out of work, who unanimously passed resolutions demanding remedial
measures. No notice whatever was taken of this. On February 8th,
1886, Patrick Kenny, a well-known promoter of public meetings on all
sorts of subjects, who had previously persuaded the Lord Mayor to open
a Mansion House Fund for the Unemployed, convened a mass meeting
of men out of work in Trafalgar Square for the purpose of denouncing
Free Trade and demanding Protection. The Social Democrats attended,
as did thousands of hungry and desperate men. Being recognised by
the crowd and called on to speak, the Socialists harangued the assembly,
who deserted the conveners of the meeting to hear John Burns,
H. H. Champion, H. M. Hyndman, John Williams, and others. At
the close of the meeting, Burns, who had in his hand a red flag, led
the way into Hyde Park. It was proved at the trial of the four chief
speakers that no disorder occurred until some real or fancied insult
by the gentlemen at the windows of the Reform Club enraged the crowd.
Stones were thrown at the windows, and no police were present. En
couraged by this circumstance, the rougher and more desperate portions
of the crowd broke hundreds of windows, and even rifled some shops, until,
on reaching Hyde Park, the majority, on the advice of the speakers of
the Social Democratic Federation, dispersed to their homes, while a
small band went through May Fair, damaging a good deal of property,
until stopped by a small band of police. On the following day
crowds again collected in Trafalgar Square, but the Social Democrats
went to Mr. Chamberlain at the Local Government Board, who,
on their representations, issued the circular to the local authorities,
whose replies are summarised above.
After some delay, Mr.
Childers, the Home Secretary, summoned up courage to proceed
against Burns, Champion, Hyndman, and Williams for seditious speak
ing. They were committed for trial, and on April 10th acquitted at the
Old Bailey before Mr. Justice Cave. It was proved, to the satisfaction
of the jury, that their advice had not been that of Timon of Athens,
Break open shops, nothing can you steal
But thieves do lose it...........................
Large handed robbers your grave masters are—
And pill by law.
but not more seditious, if more sincere, than many speeches delivered by
Privy Councillors.
Since that time various attempts have been made by the Social
Democrats to induce the local as well as the central authorities to pre
pare for the inevitable distress of this winter, but absolutely without
effect.
If the rulers of England do not want to have another Ireland at their
own doors they will do well to show that redress for grievance, in Lon
don at any rate, can be obtained without recourse to violent methods
of agitation.
No one can doubt that if the Unemployed had pursued the tactics
which have hitherto been so successful on the other side of St. George’s
Channel, their condition would now be occupying the serious attention
of our statesmen. The poor are learning this lesson. When they have
mastered it, what will be its application in London ?
�Lord Rosebery has pointed out that you cannot go on for ever sucking
the social wreckage of all other towns into the vast maelstrom of misery
that lies east of the Bank of England. City missionaries and bishops
are for ever dinning their warning into the ears of all who will hear.
No one now attempts to deny the danger to society caused by the con
trast between undeserved poverty and riches too often equally unde
served. But while the danger comes ever nearer, no attempt is made to
grapple with the causes of it. It is not too much to say that the winter
of 1885—1886 may be a turning point in the national history. If in
stead of dry reports of Commissioners, who sit to collect evidence
which is never utilised, something is done to remove these evils at their
root, all may yet be well. If this winter passes leaving the permanent
causes of social misery just where they were, and the poor still more
hopeless of peaceable changes, and chafing still more bitterly under a
sense of injustice, we have before us a prospect of bread riots put down
by arbitrary force, and martial law opposed by secret conspiracy. And,
if this be the result, who is to blame? YOU, if you agree with the
above proposals, and yet do nothing to support them. YOU, if not
agreeing with them, you fail to put forward better proposals of your
own.
H.H.C.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The facts about the unemployed: an appeal and a warning by one of the middle-class
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Champion, H.H.
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: London; New York City
Collation: 16 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: Text signed 'H.H.C'. Author believed to be H.H. Champion.
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The Modern Press; W.L. Rosenberg
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1886
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G4982
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Working conditions
Socialism
Rights
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English
Poverty
Socialism
Unemployment
Working Class-Great Britain
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The extinction of war, poverty, and infectious diseases: containing essays on Home rule and federation; Can war be suppressed?; State remedies for poverty; and The extinction of infectious diseases by a Doctor of Medicine [George R. Drysdale].
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Drysdale, George
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 157 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Printed by A. Bonner, Chancery Lane, E.C. Sold by R. Forder, Stonecutter St. E.C.
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Geo. Standring
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1904
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G4999
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Social problems
Health
Poverty
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The extinction of war, poverty, and infectious diseases: containing essays on Home rule and federation; Can war be suppressed?; State remedies for poverty; and The extinction of infectious diseases by a Doctor of Medicine [George R. Drysdale].), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Home Rule
Home Rule-Ireland
Infectious Diseases
Malthusianism
Poverty
War
War;Poverty
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23a9b8bf751132290d9a1514ffc63a19
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCTPTV
STATE MEASURES
FOB THE ABOLITION OF
wig, War, and
Containing
three Articles, (the two last reprinted from
the “ National Reformer”) :
STATE REMEDIES FOR POVERTY;
CAN AVAR BE SUPPRESSED?
AND
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
BY
A DOCTOR OF MEDICINE,
Author of the “Elements of Social Science''
SIXTH THOUSAND.
LONDON:
E. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH HOLBORN.
REMOVED FROM TEMPLE BAR.
1886.
�“Poverty, in any sense implying suffering, may be completely extin
guished by the wisdom of society, combined with the good sense and provi
dence of individuals.”—John Stuart Mill.
“ In civil society, either law or force prevails.”—Lord Bacon.
“ Man has it in his power to cause parasitic diseases to disappear off the
surface of the globe, if, as we firmly believe, the doctrine of spontaneous
generation is a chimera.”—Louis Pasteur.
�2-3 S’
no ,95
STATE REMEDIES EOR POVERTY.
I would here add, to what has been said in previous editions,* a
few remarks on a subject of the utmost possible importance. It
is a subject which has hitherto been little discussed, but on which
many have doubtless, like myself, thought long and anxiously,
BUd which seems to me urgently in need of an earnest considera
tion. However strongly opposed to the prevailing opinions
and sentiments, it will sooner or later, I believe, become the
most momentous of practical questions in every country of the
World. I refer to the endeavour to extinguish poverty by direct
legal enactment in the only way in which this could possibly be
done, namely, by means of a statute limiting the size of families,
and forbidding anyone, whether rich or poor, to have more than a
certain small number of children.
Mr. John Stuart Mill, the great thinker whose loss we deplore,
Was strongly in favour of such a measure. He says in his Political
Economy, “ It would be possible for the State to guarantee em
ployment at ample wages to all who are bom. But if it does this,
it is bound, in self-protection, and for the sake of every purpose
for which government exists, to provide that no person shall be
born without its consent.” In another work, in a vindication of
the French Revolution of 1848, he says, “ The practical result of
the whole truth might possibly be, that al] persons living should
guarantee to each other, through their organ, the State, the ability
to earn by labour an adequate subsistence, but that they should
abdicate the right of propagating the species at their own dis
cretion and without limit; that all classes alike, and not the poor
alone, should consent to exercise that power in such measure only,
and under such regulations, as society might prescribe with a
view to the common good. But before this solution of the problem
can cease to be visionary, an almost entire renovation must take
place in some of the most rooted opinions and feelings of the
present race of mankind.” And, again, he says in his Political
Economy, ‘‘ If the opinion were once generally established among
the labouring classes that their welfare required a due regulation
of the numbers of families, the respectable and well conducted of
the body would conform to the prescription, and only those would
exempt themselves from it who are in the habit of making light
*.These remarks were first inserted in the edition of the “Elements of
Social Science,” which appeared in 1878.
A 2
�4
STATE REMEDIES FOB POVERTY.
of social obligations generally ; and there would be then an evident
justification for converting the moral obligation against bringing
children into the world who are a burden to the community into
a legal one; just as in many other cases of the progress of
opinion, the law ends by enforcing against recalcitrant minorities,
obligations which to be useful must be general, and which, fro®®
a sense of their utility, a large majority have voluntarily c<M«
sented to take upon themselves. There would be no need, how^
ever, of legal sanctions, if women were admitted, as on all other
grounds they have the clearest right to be, to the same right of
citizenship with men. Let them cease to be confined by custom
to one physical function as their means of living and their source of
influence, and they would have for the first time an equal voice
with men in what concerns that function ; and of all the improve
ments in reserve for mankind, which it is now possible to foresee,
none would, in my opinion, be so fertile as this in almost every
kind of moral and social benefit.” I venture to think that even
if women were admitted to the suffrage, and other just rights and
privileges of citizenship, there would still exist the most weighty
reasons in favour of legislation on this subject.
The great reasons for such an enactment seem to me to be that
a law to regulate population, if duly carried out, could of itself with
certainty remove poverty and overwork ; that no other law, or laws,
could do this, and that the force of public opinion, and the con
science and self-interest of individuals are not strong enough,
without the aid of law, to accomplish so vast an object. What is
indispensably needed for the extinction of poverty is a restraint
on population so powerful and general as to riww the excessive
pressure on the soil; in other words, by diminishing the demand
for food, to enable the margin of cultivation to recede to a suffi
cient extent, the worst soils to be thrown out of tillage, and the
land altogether to be less highly and expensively cultivated. In
this way the productiveness of labour would be increased, and
wages would rise, while at the same time there would be a reduc
tion in the working hours, and in the cost, and, therefore, the
price of food. The country would then be placed somewhat in
the position of a new colony, for the essential difference between
an old country and a new colony is that in the former population
is pressing too heavily on the productive powers of the land. Now
it appears to me that a reform of such vast extent and difficulty
as this, requiring the co-operation of the whole of society, will
never be adequately carried out without the assistance and de
liberate sanction of the Government. When the increase of
population is left solely to the discretion of individuals, th#
moderation and self-restraint of some are counteracted by the
recklessness and improvidence of others, and thus the overcrowded
state is constantly kept up. Even in France, where prudence is
most general in this respect, there is still immense over-popula
tion ; as may be seen by the miserably low rate of wages in many
�STATE REMEDIES FOR POVERTY.
D
employments, and the high average price of provisions. It is a
fact, thoroughly established by science, that large families are the
real cause of low wages and dear food in old and civilised coun
tries, and there can be no doubt that Government has the power,
if it only has the will, to suppress the source of the evil, and
thereby remove the effect. Anything else which Parliament can
&> to raise wages must be merely indirect, and can only attain its
object by the circuitous means of acting on the general intelli
gence and independence of the people, and inducing them to limit
their numbers. Why then should we always be content with
indirect and inadequate measures? Why not go at once to the
root of the matter, and grapple with the main cause of poverty
and pauperism, with the earnest resolution to put an end to them ?
It seems to me that this question is sure to be asked before long
by the working classes and social reformers, when the chief cause
of poverty becomes widely known, and is no longer a matter of
dispute. The great idea lying at the root of the socialist and
democratic doctrines which have spread so widely of late years,
■especially on the Continent—an idea which I believe to be pro
foundly true—is that mankind form a community whose interests
are bound up together, and who should mutually aid one another,
and insure one another, as far as possible, against the ills of life ;
that society should have an equal care for the happiness of all its
members, and should see that all are duly provided for ; that
therefore it is the duty of society, through its organ, the Govern
ment, to take energetic steps for the removal of poverty, and to
guarantee to every individual who is willing to work, an ample
Subsistence in return for his labour. Now, a law to regulate
population is in reality the only law by which it is possible for the
State at once and directly to do away with poverty, to shorten the
hours of labour, and to raise wages to a satisfactory amount ; and
If it be true, as was maintained by the Provisional Government of
France in 1848, and was inscribed in the project of a constitution,
that the State ought to guarantee subsistence and employment to
ail who are willing to Work, such a law is the only means by which
the object could be effected. Ought not then the State to adopt
this one and only means for ensuring to all a comfortable subristence ? Should we not choose the most direct and certain path
to deliver our society from the fearful evils of poverty and
pauperism? For my own part, I cannot but entertain a deep
conviction that such a law is quite legitimate in the extraordinary
difficulties arising from the population principle. I think that it
would, if enacted, be the most important to human happiness of
all possible laws, and that it will sooner or later be laid down as
the very foundation and corner-stone of society, in all the civilised
countries of the old world.
It will be said that a measure of the kind described is far too
Sweeping an innovation, and too despotic an interference with
personal liberty to be ever seriously cont«mplated. But those
�6
STATE REMEDIES FOR POVERTY.
who rely on sueh objections would do well to consider attentively
the actual state of the facts The truth is, that population is
already so powerfully restrained by prudential motives in this and
many other countries, that a little more or less of restraint is a
matter of much smaller importance, and would be far less felt,
than is often supposed. Immense numbers of people, perhaps the
majority of society, are obliged at present by their circumstances
to exercise so much caution in regard to marriage and offspring,
that it would not make the slightest practical difference to them
whether a Malthusian statute were in existence in the country ot
not. To those who are forced to lead a life of celibacy, the change
would bring a positive increase of freedom, for if there were no
excessive families, a much greater number could marry. The only
persons whose liberty would really be interfered with are those
who have large families, and in their case the operation of the law
would for the most part be the greatest possible blessing to them
selves as well as to the rest of society. It is no one’s real interest
in an old and over-peopled country to have a large family.
Children, when too numerous, are a source of intolerable diffi
culties and anxieties among the rich quite as much as among the
poorer classes ; and it is a remarkable fact that in France and
many other countries it is the rich, and not the poor, 'who most
carefully limit the number of their offspring. We see, therefore,
that the question does not really lie between liberty and restraint,
but between two degrees of restraint, one of them unjust and
partial in its action, inefficient, and attended by the most wide
spread sufferings, and the other, which would be just and efficient,
and which would not be practically felt by most people as any
increase of restriction, but only by those who would themselves be
immensely benefited by the change. I believe that the abolition
of poverty, the mightiest of all social revolutions, could be quietly
and peacefully effected by this means, with only such an amount
of interference with personal liberty as would be comparatively
little felt as a positive evil. Moreover, poverty cannot possibly be
got rid of without an increase in the preventive check to popu
lation. It is in vain to wish that there were no poor, and yet
object to a further limitation of the size of families ; if we will
the end, we must will the means to attain it; and if, therefore,
society must of an absolute necessity submit to an increased
restraint in order to effect this grand purpose, what real difference
does it make whether the restraint comes from law, or from public
opinion, or from the conscientious feelings, or the interests, or the
circumstances of individuals ? Another very important matter
to be taken into account is, that legal restrictions on population
actually exist at present in many continental countries, and even,
in England. Mr. Senior, as quoted by Mr. Mill in his Political
Economy, says that in the countries which recognise a legal right
to relief, “ marriage on the part of persons in the actual receipt of
relief appears to be everywhere prohibited, and the marriage of
�STATE REMEDIES FOR POVERTY.
7
those who are not likely to possess the means of independent sup
port is allowed by very few.” In Norway, Wurtemberg, Bavaria,
Frankfort, several Swiss Cantons, and some other parts of the
Continent, no one is permitted to marry unless he can show that
he has a fair prospect of being able to maintain a family ; while
in England, by a provision of the poor-law, husband and wife are
separated in the workhouse. Now these laws, however excellent
their intention, and however efficacious they may have been in
diminishing poverty, do not seem to me strictly in accordance with
justice, for two reasons : in the first place, because they prohibit
marriages, instead of prohibiting (what alone, it appears to me,
the Legislature can justly restrict) large families; and, secondly,
because they apply only to the poor, and not to all classes of
society alike. The existence of such enactments shows that a
statute to regulate population would not introduce any new prin
ciple (since restrictions on marriage are really restrictions on
population), but would merely be the extension to the community
at large of a law which exists in this and other countries in regard
to certain classes, and which, in my opinion, is unjust so long as it
is confined to them, and is thus only a law for the poor and not
for the riqh. Is it just that all the restrictions should be laid on
the poor or the paupers, when the whole of society has a share in
the production of poverty and pauperism ? Again, as to the objec
tion that such a statute could never be enforced, we must remem
ber that it could not possibly be enacted without an immense
deal of discussion, and till the majority of the nation were strongly
in its favour, and that the majority would not seek to impose any
obligations on others which they were not ready to submit to
themselves. It may, perhaps, be added that it would be possible
to make the limit of families rather a high one—perhaps four
children as the maximum—since very many would not reach it, and
the penalty could be slight, as the great object of the law would
be to guide and strengthen public opinion, and the dictates of
individual prudence and conscience, and not by any means to
supply their place. The mere discussion of the subject would be
of incalculable value, and would spread a knowledge of the popu
lation truths over the whole country.
Had the population question been openly discussed, so that all
Blight understand it, we should never have seen that perversion of
justice by which two of the most gifted of English citizens have
Been sentenced to fine and imprisonment for seeking to benefit
the poor—for earnestly considering the cause of low wages, as
laid down by political economy, and pointing out the means by
which, in their belief, poverty could be removed from society. It
is the duty of all to meet, and not evade, this question. More
especially is it incumbent on those who prosecute others to state
plainly their own views on the subject. When a remedy for
human miseries is put forward, not as a good in itself, but as the
least oj several alternative evils, one or other of which is necessary
�8
STATE REMEDIES FOR POVERTY.
and inevitable, those who condemn it are bound to say which of
the other alternative evils they think preferable. As there must
always exist a most powerful check to population, either positive
or preventive, in old countries, the question to be determined is,
which of the various forms of the check is most consistent with
the happiness and well-being of mankind ? This is the real point
at issue, and opponents are bound to consider it most carefully,
and to show, if they can, that some other mode of dealing with
the terrible difficulty of population is better than the one pro
posed. Now there are several different ways in which the popu
lation difficulty may be dealt with by those who disapprove of
preventive measures. People may either ignore it altogether, as
the vast majority do, and go on blindly striving to remove from
society all the checks to population, or permanently to diminish
any one of them without a proportional increase of some of the
others-—objects which Mr. Malthus, eighty years ago, showed to
be quite unattainable by human effort. Or they may deny the
truth of the law of population, and contend that man’s choice is
not limited to one or other of the checks to increase, and that
poverty is not the result of too rapid multiplication. Or they
may hold that the existing checks, poverty, prostitution, and celi
bacy, are preferable to preventive means ; or maintain, with Mr.
Malthus, that all the other checks ought to be superseded by an
enormous increase of celibacy or sexual abstinence. Or, finally,
they may see nothing wrong in the preventive measures—nay,
may themselves adopt them—but yet hold that the subject ought
not to be spoken of or discussed in writing ; an opinion which is,
I believe, very common, but which cannot be sustained ; for if it
be morally right to use these means, they must be carefully con
sidered by physicians and others, so as to learn their influence on
human health and happiness, and to free them, as far as possible,
from any injurious consequences. One or other of these views
must be held by opponents, and they are bound to state clearly
and openly which of them they do hold. This, however, has not
been done by the prosecutors or their counsel, and hence those who
honestly meet and try to solve the greatest of human difficulties
are attacked and threatened with legal penalties by those who
evade it altogether, and therefore do not give any real grounds to
justify their condemnation. For the moment the attempt has
been defeated by the heroism and eloquence of Mr. Bradlaugh and
Mrs. Besant, and the heart of every true friend of the people is
with them, and with Mr. Truelove, in their steadfast defence of
the population doctrines and the liberty of the Press—one of the
greatest services ever done in any country to the poor and to
humanity at large.
�CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED?
Hs>w long is war with its countless list of horrors and miseries to
continue among us? Every one must feel that war is an appalling
evil and blot on civilisation, and must earnestly desire that means
<fould be taken to put an end to it. War is lawlessness ; it is an
appeal to might instead of right, in which parties decide their own
quarrels by force of arms, instead of submitting them to an im
partial tribunal to be decided according to reason and justice ; and
hence it is utterly opposed to civilisation, which seeks to bring all
actions under the dominion of law. War stands out alone, as an
exception and a fearful remnant of barbarism in the midst of
modern civilised life. But war is not merely lawlessness, it is
murder. We can see this from the parallel case of duelling, which
absolutely prohibited and treated as murder by the law of
England. “ According to the law of England,” said Sir John
Holker, in a recent trial, “ a man who kills another in a duel is
a murderer and liable to be hanged.” No matter what the merits
of the quarrel may have been, whether a man be aggrieved or
aggressor, if he fights a duel and kills his opponent he is punished
by the law as a murderer. But if duelling be murder, what else
is war ? War is simply duelling on a vast scale, and with this
aggravation, that the crime of robbery, in the shape of annexations,
indemnities, and other kinds of pillage, is usually added to that of
murder. Moreover, in duelling the principals fight their own
battles, and an attempt is made to put them, as far as possible, on
a footing of equality ; whereas in war, the rulers who give the
command for it do not usually themselves fight, and every advan
tage is taken of superiority in number, skill, and military resources
between the combatants. Is it not monstrous that now, after all
the progress in humanity, one nation is allowed to attack another,
perhaps a much weaker nation, to kill the people and seize their
land and their goods ? How can the people of England, who
have shown their respect for law and for human life in putting
down the duel, tolerate war ?
Few of the great movements of the age are of such extra
ordinary importance as that for the suppression of war. The
most noble efforts have been made of late years for this end by
Mr. Bright, M. Victor Hugo, Mr. Henry Richard, Mr. Bradlaugh
gnd others, and the Peace Societies in England already number
Several hundred thousand members. Various plans have also been
put forward for superseding war and supplying its place by inter
�10
CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED ?
national arbitration, and these plans cannot be too carefully con
sidered and discussed ; for it is not merely by the general advance
of commerce and enlightenment and the growing abhorrence of
war among thinking minds, but also, and above all, by the adoption
in time of peace of active practical measures to prevent war, that
we shall ever be able to free human society from this terrible and
immemorial evil.
The more deeply the subject is reflected on, the more clearly I
think will it be seen that the real cause of wars is the want of a
supreme and irresistible authority, which could force the nations to
conform to law in their dealings with one another and to settle
their disputes by peaceable arbitration. The only effectual remedy
for war, as has been well pointed out, is the introduction of law
—or in other words, of positive rules of conduct, applied by a
court of justice, and enforced by a competent authority—into the
mutual intercourse of nations. At present international relations
are in an essentially lawless state; there is no code of laws govern
ing nations like that which governs individuals ; for what is called
“ international or public law ” or “ the law of nations,’’ as all
writers on the subject admit, is not really law at all, in the legal
sense of the word, but merely custom or usage, or else engagement
by treaty. Nations may disregard these customs, or break their
treaties in particular instances, if they choose to incur the risk of
so doing, and they have what is called the “right of making war ”
on one another and deciding their quarrels by violent means—a
right whichis utterly subversive of the very idea of law. The essence
of law is the compulsory adjudication of disputes by an impartial
tribunal, and if parties are allowed to dispense with a tribunal
altogether and settle their differences for themselves by the sword,
it is evident that law doesnot exist between them. But wherever,
in any department of human affairs, law is absent, or cannot be
enforced from weakness of the executive, the most fatal conse
quences are sure to arise. Thus in the Middle Ages, before govern
ments were strong enough to coerce the barons and feudal chiefs,
private wars between them as well as national contests were so
common that, as Mr. Buckle says, “ there was never a week with
out war.” Even in our own day, when opinion is so much more
advanced, if there were no laws regulating the succession to pro
perty, the fulfilment of contracts, &c., and if people were allowed
to fight for their rights instead of having them determined by a
court of justice, society would be a scene of continual bloodshed
and confusion. War is the natural and inevitable result of the
present lawless state of international relations, and the one and
only remedy for it is to extend to nations, as well as individuals,
the inestimable benefits of law. But how is this to be done ? If
we examine the matter attentively we shall find that the element
which is wanting to constitute a true legal system between nations,
is a supreme authority with adequate executive force. There
exists already a code of rules or usages commonly called inter-
�CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED ?
11
Rational law, which has gradually become better defined and more
binding, as well as juster and more humane, in the course of
ages ; an international tribunal could be established, consisting
of judges skilled in public law, and chosen from the different
States ; but the grand difficulty to be overcome is the want of a
supreme authority, to approve and, when necessary, add to the
code, and strong enough to compel the nations, however powerful,
to carry their disputes before the tribunal and abide by its de
cisions. It is a sanction, or enforcing authority, of this kind that
the international code really needs. “ The independent societies
of men, called States,” says Mr. Wheaton, in his work on Inter
national Law, “ acknowledge no common arbiter or judge, except
such as are constituted by special compact. The law by which
they are governed, or profess to be governed, is deficient in those
positive sanctions which are annexed to the municipal code of
each distinct society.” If there were such sanctions, war between
nations could be crushed out with the same certainty and com
pleteness as the civil wars between the feudal nobles have been
extinguished by the growing power of the law courts. The
question, How is war to be suppressed, seems to me, therefore, to
tasolve itself mainly into this other question—How is a sufficient
Sanction, or executive authority, to be obtained for the law of
nations ?
We may now turn to the various practical proposals which have
been brought forward with a view to the prevention of war, and
of which the most important seem to be the following : a general
reduction of armaments ,* a confederation of States, and international
armies. The first of these would be an immense boon if it could
be obtained, as it would lighten an intolerable burden on the
nations, and also make war less probable, since governments would
no longer be so fully prepared for it. But there are evidently
most formidable difficulties in the way of carrying out this pro
posal. The disarmament would need to be general, for if any of
the great Powers refused to reduce their forces, it would be dan
gerous for others to do so ; and some governments would be
particularly averse to disarm, either from unwillingness’ to give
up cherished schemes of ambition or revenge or from the vast
size of their dominions and fear of disaffection among their sub
jects. But even if these difficulties were overcome, disarmament
Would be only a palliative, and not a cure for present evils. It
Would still leave arbitration optional, whereas the object to be
aimed at is that it should be compulsory, or, in other words, that
law should be introduced in international affairs. “We hold,”
says Professor Cliffe Leslie, “ that only a law of nations in the
* A resolution in favour of a general disarmament by the European States
was proposed in Parliament by Mr. Cobden in 1849, and again recently in
1880 by Mr. Henry Richard. The latter also, in 1878, moved a resolution,
which was adopted by the House of Commons, in favour of the arbitration
of international disputes.
�12
CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED?
strict sense of the term, can terminate war.” Without law, there
is not only no guarantee for peace, but no provision for securing
justice, between nations. Disputes between nations, as between
individuals, arise on questions of contested right, or in conse
quence of injuries received ; and if one party refuses to arbitrate,
the other must either tamely submit to what it considers an
injustice, or go to war to enforce its rights. But war, like the
barbarous “ trial by combat ’’ in use among our ancestors, can
never be a proper test of justice or of right, for a war does not
show which cause is just, but only which of the combatants is the
stronger. So long, therefore, as Governments may refuse arbi
tration and may go to war, injustice and lawless force are the final
umpires in international disputes, and this must have a profoundly
demoralising effect on mankind and their rulers. In order to have
either peace or justice it is necessary to introduce law, which would
compel arbitration, and secure, even to the weakest among the
nations, its rights and redress for its injuries. This, too, is the
only sure means for bringing about a disarmament, for the real
cause of the enormous armies (amounting at present in Europe
alone to about ten millions of men) is the state of general inse
curity and licence arising from the absence of law. As there is
no law to protect or restrain them, nations arm partly to protect
themselves and partly to carry out secret projects of conquest
and aggrandisement; and we can scarcely hope to see any satis
factory reduction of armaments till there is a real and effective
international law.
How, then, can such a law be obtained? We have seen that
what is mainly needed for this purpose is a supreme authority,
with adequate executive force to give effect to the present inter
national code, which, as Mr. Cliffe Leslie observes, has the features
of law “in its inchoate or rudimentary form.” Now there is
evidently only one way in which an authority of the kind can be
established, namely, by means of a combination between different
States. Nothing but the combined strength of many States can
force single States to obey the law and to keep the peace. The
real sanction of the law between individual and individual is the
general community of individuals, and in like manner the sanction
of the law between nation and nation can only be the com
munity of nations. It seems to me the clearest and most urgent
duty of nations to take measures for introducing positive law
between them and putting an end to war. Until provision can
be made for the legal settlement of international disputes, the
responsibility for war with all its horrors rests in great part on
the nations generally ; and this leads to the utmost confusion of
ideas with regard to the criminality of war. One. of the most
frightful of crimes is not generally seen to be a crime at all.
Thus at present wars are commonly divided into just and unjust,
because, in the absence of law, it is sometimes necessary, and
even an act of the most heroic virtue in a nation to fight for its
�CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED ?
13
rights and liberties; but if law were once firmly established,
and means of legal arbitration afforded, war would simply be a
crime, to be repressed and its chief authors punished, as in the
case of other heinous offences. There would then be only one
kind of lawful and justifiable war, namely, that which is analogous
to the action of the police, and consists in putting down by force
any resistance to the orders of the supreme authority. . Not only
can and ought the nations thus to put down war as a crime, but it
is their most vital interest to do so. At present any nation is
liable at some time or other to be involved in war, and even
neutrals during a war often suffer most severely ; for their.com
merce and communications are interrupted by blockades, sieges,
and other military operations ; and, besides, war has a great ten
dency to spread, and the best efforts on the part of neutral States
are often unavailing to prevent their being dragged into it. Why
should neutrals submit to these fearful evils and dangers at
the hands of belligerents, who are morally bound to arbitrate
their disputes, and are therefore committing a crime in going to
war?
These considerations are so immensely important that they
■lust, I believe, before long lead to a combination among civilised
States for the purpose of preventing war. But States may com
bine in different ways, either by alliance or by a more or less inti
mate confederation ; and the great difficulty of the question is to
decide which kind of combination is at once suited to effect the
object in view and also capable of adoption by existing States.
^Professor Seeley, in a lecture delivered before the Peace Society,
Bias held that nothing short of a close federal union, like that sub
sisting between the States of North America, who are all under a
common government, would be sufficient; and a similar view seems
to be taken by those who advocate, as a remedy for war, the for
mation of what they term “ the United States of Europe.” It
geems to me, however, that so vast a change as this is neither
©raoticable nor necessary, and that the form of union to be aimed
at is one which, while binding the nations very strongly together,
would interfere as little as possible with the sovereignty and inde
pendence of each. This could best be done, in my opinion, by
means of an alliance, with mixed or international armies; a proposal
which was brought forward some time ago by Mr. G-lasse, in the
columns of the National Reformer, and to which I had myself
independently been led on thinking on the subject. The means
which I would venture to suggest as best adapted for the pre ven
tton of war are the following :—-That two or more nations should
enter into a close alliance together, unite their armies, and invite
other nations to join them, with the declared intention of arbi
trating their own disputes in future, and also of putting an end to
war throughout the world and compelling all disputes to be settled
by peaceable arbitration, as soon as the alliance was strong enough
to effect this. The object of such a league would be to sanction
�14
CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED ?
and enforce international law, and compel all disputes between
nations to be settled by it, and not by war; and if only two or
three powerful States were thus to ally themselves, it would pro
bably be sufficient in great measure to effect the object, since the
alliance could often prevent a war by threatening, in the event of
a quarrel between two States, to assist in hostilities against either
party which acted illegally—or, in other words, which either re
fused to arbitrate, or, having arbitrated, refused to submit to the
judgment of the tribunal. It is to be hoped, however, that in time
all civilised nations would join the alliance, so that it would
become irresistible, and that single States would as little dare to
defy its authority as individuals now think of setting themselves
against the civil powers. In this manner war would not merely be
suppressed, if it occurred, but, what is infinitely more desirable,
would be entirely prevented from occurring.
A league of the kind here suggested would bind the nations
very firmly together by uniting their armies, and yet would not, as
it appears to me, interfere materially with their existing rights of
sovereignty and independence. One part of the mixed forces
could be kept in each country, and would be subject to the national
government, as armies now are ; while in all operations external to
the country the troops would be under the joint command of the
allied powers, and would never be used except against those who
refused to settle their differences in a legal and peaceable manner.
This, I submit, is the only true function of an army—namely, to
defend and enforce the law, and not merely, as hitherto, to carry
out the arbitrary will of individual governments. An army should
be the guardians of international law, as the police are the guardians
of the municipal law. Like the police, too, an army should be
strictly impartial, having nothing to do either with the merits of
quarrels or with the parties concerned in them. It should be as
culpable for a soldier to show partiality to his own country, at the
expense of international law, as for a policeman illegally to favour
his personal friends. This impartiality, so indispensable in all
officers of the law, would, I think, be best secured by having
armies of mixed nationality. Another great advantage of the
league would be that the allies could, if they pleased, at onep
reduce their forces, without waiting for other nations to do the
same, and without dangerously diminishing their strength ; for
they would be able to draw upon the combined armies and re-*
sources of two or more countries, instead of one only, for their
protection against foreign or domestic foes. It appears to me that
in this manner, or by some similar means, a sufficient executive
authority could be obtaiued for the international code ; while any
difficult question that might arise, or amendment that might be
needed in the code itself, could be discussed and settled, as is now
the practice, by conferences or congresses between the different
States.
The extension of law to nations as well as individuals, and th®
�CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED?
15
abolition of the barbarous “ right of making war,” seem to me
beyond all comparison the greatest improvements which could be
effected in international politics, and would be a glorious triumph
of statesmanship. If statesmen of different countries, and among
them Mr. Gladstone, who has already done so much for the cause
of international arbitration, and who speaks in one of his works of
“ the rising hopes of a true public law for Christendom,” could do
something towards the realisation of these hopes, it would be a
priceless boon to a world sick of war and bloodshed, and longing
for the advent of a new era of settled peace, law, and real brother
hood among mankind.
[The momentous change in our Constitution which has lately
been proposed—the setting up, namely, of a Parliament in Ireland,
separate from that of Great Britain—is a change in the opposite
direction to those suggested above, and would, I cannot but think,
be a calamity and great danger to both countries from the clashing
of the legislative wills. It seems to me that the object of re
formers, all over the world, should be to strengthen and not to
relax the legal ties which now bind nations together. Why not
rather do our utmost to conciliate the Irish people and to satisfy
their legitimate aspirations, while at the same time enforcing
obedience to law and maintaining inviolate the Union ? a union
which has been the source of incalculable benefits to England and
Scotland, and also, I am firmly persuaded, to Ireland itself, in spite
of the confiscations and hateful penal laws of bygone ages.]
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES,
Of all the doctrines recently brought forward in medicine, none
seems to me so extremely important as that which has been gain
ing ground with regard to infectious fevers, and has been earnestly
urged by the highest medical authorities, in particular by Sir
James Simpson and Sir Thomas Watson. I allude to the momentous
and startling doctrine that by taking proper measures to prevent
them, all the purely infectious or contagious febrile diseases might
be, and ought to be, completely and finally extirpated. The diseases
in question have more and more occupied the attention of Parlia
ment and sanitary reformers of late years, and were a leading sub •
ject of discussion at the International Medical Congress held a few
years ago in London. They form a peculiar class of affections,
having the following very remarkable characters in common.
They are fevers of a specific kind, most of them attended with an
eruption on the skin ; they are propagated by infection from one
person to another, usually by breathing the exhalations from the
sick, and they occur, as a rule, only once in a lifetime. In all of
them the minute poison which communicates the disease is im
mensely multiplied in the body of the patient, and as in this and
some other points the fevers have a resemblance to the action of
a ferment, they are often called zymotic, or fermentation-like
diseases.
The late Sir Thomas Watson, in an article on “ The Abolition
of Zymotic Disease,” which was published in the Nineteenth Cen
tury lieview, for May, 1877, and has since been re-issued with
others in a separate form, expresses his firm belief, that these
diseases “ might be finally banished from this island,” and ob
serves, that with regard to them, “it is of vast importance that
the public, no less than the medical profession, should have the
fullest attainable knowledge.” He thus enumerates the diseases to
which he refers :—“ They are not numerous,” he says, “ these
zymotic diseases. There are not more than nine or ten of them.
Small-pox, chicken-pox, typhus fever, typhoid or enteric fever,
scarlet fever, the plague, measles, hooping-cough, mumps—these
belong to, and, I think, constitute, the group of diseases now to
be considered.” Two of the number, chicken-pox and mumps
are slight affections, but the others are among the most ter
rible and fatal maladies that afflict the human race. If we
think of the prodigious amount of suffering and death these
diseases have caused and are causing yearly—the millions they
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOJS DISI A.SES.
17
have slain, and the panic they spread around them, the danger
which a person affected with one of them becomes to his fellow
features, and the broken constitutions and disfigurements they so
often leave behind even when they spare life, we can form an idea
of the immense and incalculable blessing which their extinction
Would be to mankind.
The great fact which warrants us in believing that these
diseases might be entirely extirpated, or “ stamped out,” is, that
whatever their primary origin in past ages may have been, they
never norv-a-days arise spontaneously, but are invariably propagated
ig infection. They are not merely infectious diseases, but have no
other source than infection. “ They are communicated from
person to person by contagion,” says Sir Thomas Watson, “and,
a® I venture to maintain, arise in no other way ; and this quality,
with their non-recurrence, forms the key to their supreme in
terest.” Small-pox, for example, never arises except by contagion
from a pre-existing case of small-pox, measles from a pre-existing
case of measles, scarlet fever from scarlet fever, and so on with the
rest. Moreover, they always, to use a common expression, “breed
tea®/* propagating their own kind, and no other, and maintaining
their characteristic type and features unchanged from generation
to generation. Thus measles always breeds measles, and never
scarlet fever or hooping-cough ; typhus breeds typhus, and never
typhoid fever; and each disease runs the same course in the
present day, has the same average duration, and presents the same
symptoms as it did when first clearly described by the earlier
physicians. In the above respects the infectious fevers bear a close
and most, striking resemblance to the different species of plants and
animals. We do not know how these species at first came into
existence (though we believe them to have been gradually deve
loped from lower forms), but we know that at the present day the
individuals belonging to each species always descend from parents
like themselves, and never spring up spontaneously. We know,
top, that they propagate their own kind and no other ; and that,
although admitting of some modifications, they adhere tenaciously
through the ages to their distinctive form and characters. From
their remarkable resemblance to species in these respects, the
infectious fevers are often called specific diseases ; that is, diseases
which are Like species in their constant characters, and in the fact
that they never originate spontaneously.
Sow it follows as a necessary consequence from this single and
definite mode of origin, that both the infectious fevers and the
different species of plants and animals are liable to extinction if
certain conditions be fulfilled. As they never arise in any other
way than by continuous succession, the fevers from diseases like
tbemgelves, and the plants and animals from parents like them
selves, if the line of descent be entirely broken through at any
time, the race perishes and can never re-appear. Many animal and
vegetable species have thus perished in the world’s history, as the
B
�18
THE EXTINCTION OB' INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
geological records show us, and some races hurtful to man have
been intentionally exterminated over large tracts of country, as,
for instance, wolves have been exterminated in England. In order
to extirpate a living species all that is needed is to destroy at any
given time every individual belonging to it ; and, in like manner,
to extirpate a form of infectious fever, it would be sufficient that
every existing case of it should be prevented from spreading to
others; if this can once, and once only, be accomplished, the
species, or the fever, ■will become permanently extinct. We see,
therefore, that as regards their preventibility, no less than their
mode of origin, the contagious fevers are a peculiar class of dis
orders, separated by a broad line of demarcation from others.
They are often called “ the most preventible of diseases/’ but the
truth is, that their preventibility is of a very different kind from
that of other affections. They are not merely preventible, in the
ordinary sense of the word, but extinguishable, or abolishable
diseases. Other diseases cannot be extinguished, and for this
reason, that we cannot destroy the causes that produce them. We
can only avoid their causes by the exercise of constant care and
vigilance, and if our efforts were relaxed at any time, the diseases
would appear again ; but in regard to the contagious fevers, as
they never arise but from other fevers of a similar kind, it is pos
sible to destroy the only causes known to be capable of producing
them. Thus, if every existing case of small-pox, typhus, scarlet
fever, and the rest, could be prevented from propagating itself to
others, these fevers would be definitively extirpated, and no im
prudence on the part of mankind, nor any other circumstance, so
far as we have reason to believe, could ever revive them. They
would then be extinct forms of disease, like the extinct species of
plants and animals, and only the memory of them would remain
to posterity.
The two assertions here made—that the infectious fevers have no
other source than infection, and that therefore, unlike other dis
eases, they might be finally extirpated—are among the most mo
mentous conclusions ever brought forward by science, and should
be thoroughly known to every one. The first of them is the
foundation of the other, and has a bearing on human health and
happiness whose importance cannot be exaggerated. If it be true
that these diseases have no other source than infection, then we
may hope by vigorous sanitary measures to stamp them out com
pletely, so that no further anxiety on their account would ever
afterwards be needed ; but if, on the other hand, besides being
infectious, they can also arise spontaneously, or de novo, as it is
often expressed (that is, from any other cause than infection), not
only would their prevention be far more difficult, since we should
have to guard against two or more modes of origin instead of one,
but we could never hope permanently to extinguish them. The
great question, therefore, is—Have these diseases no other cause
than infection ? This is a point on which the present medical
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
19
opinion has been slowly and gradually arrived at. In former times
the infectious fevers were very commonly confounded together,
and their mode of origin was not clearly understood, but they
were often supposed to be due to some unknown atmospheric
influence ; as may be seen from the fact that even in the seven
teenth century the celebrated Sydenham, who was the first to
draw the distinction between small-pox and measles, did not know
that small-pox is infectious. Afterwards their infectiousness
became recognised, but it was thought that they might also pro
ceed from other causes ; and lastly, increasing experience and
careful observation and reasoning, especially since the publication
of Dr. Bancroft’s essay in 1811, have led to the modern view that
they never in any single instance arise but from infection. This
is now the prevalent medical doctrine on the subject, and with
regard to many of the diseases above enumerated it is rarely, if
ever, disputed.
Thus Sir Thomas Watson says: “ As life springs only from
preceding life—as, according to the verdict of exact scientific
experiment, there is no such thing as spontaneous generation, so,
under similar testimony, there is, now-a-days at least, no spon
taneous origin of any of these specific disorders.” In like manner,
in a “ Proposal to Stamp out Small-pox and other Contagious
Diseases,” published in the Medical Times and Gazette for January
4th and 11th. 1868, the late Sir James Simpson says, speaking of
small-pox: “We would no more expect this known species of
disease or poison to originate de novo at the present day, under
any combination of circumstances, than we would expect a known
species of animal or plant—as a dog or a hawthorn--to spring up
de novo and without antecedent parentage.” Dr. Aitken, also, in
his “Science and Practice of Medicine,” 7th edition, 1880, says,
in discussing the origin of scarlet fever: “ On this point Dr.
Ballard writes most distinctly (and with him I fully agree) that
‘ thus much is certain, it does not arise spontaneously—no disease
of its class ever does.’ ”
The most convincing argument against the spontaneous origin
of any of these diseases is the great length of time during which
they may be entirely absent from a district, a country, or even a
whole continent, until they are introduced from some external
source. Indeed, the contagious fevers, like the animal and
vegetable species, seem at first to have arisen in certain parts of
the world only, and thence to have gradually spread to others,
with the progress of human intercourse and the increased facilities
of communication, so that in most countries they are not indigenous
but imported diseases. Sir Thomas Watson observes that small
pox, though existing from remote antiquity in China and Hin
dustan, “does not appear to have been known in Europe till the
beginning of the eighth century,” and that “ there was no small
pox in the New World before its discovery by Columbus in 1492,
In 1517 the disease was imported into St. Domingo. Three years
b 2
�20
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
later, in. one ot the Spanish expeditions from Cuba to Mexico, a
negro covered with the pustules of small-pox was landed on the
Mexican coast. From him the disease spread with such desolation
that within a very short time, according to Robertson, three
millions and a half of people were destroyed in that kingdom
alone.” As to scarlet fever, Dr. Aitken says that “ the earliest
source of the poison is distinctly traceable to Arabia,” and adds
that “ measles was first noticed at the same time and in the same
country as scarlet fever, and the two diseases have subsequently
followed nearly the same course. They now prevail all over the
world.” Of hooping-cough -(which is not, like the others, afever)
he says that “ its origin is not beyond 1510, when it was endemic
in Paris ; but its epidemic character was not determined till 1580.
That most fatal of all epidemic maladies, the plague, had til'/
within the last forty years its chief home in Egypt and other
countries bordering on the Levant, from which it repeatedly
spread to different parts of Europe, committing fearful ravages.
In the middle of the fourteenth century it is computed to have
carried off, under the name of the “ Black Death,” from a fourth
to a third of all the inhabitants of Europe ; and in 16G5, the date
of its last appearence in our country, the “ Great Plague of
London” was fatal to 68,596 persons out of a population amount
ing at the time to about half a million. The prolonged absence
of a contagious fever is best seen in islands, and isolated places on
the mainland, to which infection is less readily carried ; and
among many remarkable instances of ths kind on record, there is
one which has often been cited in the recent history of measles.
There was no measles in the Faroe group of islands on the north
of Scotland, for sixty-five years previous to 1846, at which date
it was imported into them by a man affected with the disease.
It spread from him with vast rapidity (as usually happens when
measles or small-pox is introduced among a population, few or
none of whom are protected by having had it before), so that
within six months, out of the 7,782 inhabitants of the islands,
more than 6,000, old and young alike, suffered from the com
plaint.
Now, if any of these contagious fevers were capable of arising
spontaneously, why did they not show themselves during the
long periods just referred to? Why was there no small-pox in
Europe till the eighth or in America till the sixteenth century ?
Why has the plague been unknown in England since 1665, or,
since 1844, even in Egypt, which was formerly looked upon as
its peculiar home? Why was measles entirely absent from the
Faroe islands between 1781 and 1846? It cannot be said
that surrounding circumstances were unfavourable—on the con
trary, as events proved in regard to measles and small-pox, they
were extremely favourable to the existence and propagation of the
diseases. Why, then, did the latter not make their appearance ?
The answer evidently is, that they did not appear because there
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
21
was no antecedent case present to produce them by infection, and
these diseases are as little capable of arising from any other cause
than injection as a plant can spring up except from a seed, or an
animal except from an egg.
I The argument against the spontaneous origin of the infectious
fevers, drawn from the great length of time during which they
®»ny be absent from particular countries or localities, until intro
duced from an external source, is so convincing that, when taken
®fong with the results of daily experience, it has led to a very
general agreement among medical men with regard to many of
these diseases. Thus, of the six principal kinds of infectious
fever now existing among us—namely, small-pox, measles, scarlet
fever, hooping-cough, typhusfever, and typhoid or entericfever'—the
first four are almost universally admitted never to arise spon
taneously at the present day, but to be propagated solely by
infection. On this point I may quote, in addition to the high
authorities already given, the opinion of Dr. Karl Liebermeister,
who says, in his introductory essay on Infectious Diseases, in
Stanssen’s “Cyclopaedia of the Practice of Medicine” (1875):
“ The spontaneous origin of small-pox, measles, and scarlet fever
could scarcely find a defender now.” Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson
observes also, in his article on Constitutional Syphilis, in Reynolds’
** System of Medicine
“ Like small-pox, scarlet fever, measles,
and the others in this group, syphilis is communicable from the
diseased to the healthy, and can be produced by no other means.”
One of the few who still advocate the doctrine of a spontaneous
origin is Dr. Charlton Bastian ; but he admits nevertheless, in
•peaking of “ hooping-cough, measles, scarlet fever, and small“ the knowledge we possess concerning the mode of
origin of these, otherwise than by infection, is almost nil."
With regard, however, to the origin of the two remaining
fevers, typhus and typhoid, and especially the latter, there is, un
fortunately, not yet the same general agreement; and as these
fevers are exceedingly important from their frequency and
fatality, they deserve particular attention. In their outward
appearance the two diseases are very much alike, being long
continued fevers, with obscure, though different eruptions, and
attended with great prostration and delirium—typhus lasting from
two to three weeks, and typhoid fever about a week longer.
Owing to their external resemblance, they were always confounded
together till within the last thirty or forty years, and were thought
to be merely modifications of the same disease, as other fevers
had been previously ; but the labours of several eminent observers,
among whom Sir William Jenner holds a conspicuous place, have
shown them to be quite distinct. In the Registrar-General’s
Imports of the causes of death in England they were first sepa
rated in 1869. The chief difference in their symptoms is, that in
typhoid fever there is always present an inflammation and ulcera
tion of some of the intestinal glands, accompanied by a peculiar
�22
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
and copious diarrhoea lasting for several days, which intestinal
affection is not found in typhus. For this reason, and also to
avoid the confusion arising from the similarity of the namM
typhus and typhoid, the latter disease is now more suitably called
enteric, that is, intestinal fever.
But the difference between the two diseases which is most
important with a view to their prevention is in the mode of their
infectiousness. Typhus fever, like small-pox, scarlet fever,
measles, and hooping-cough, is propagated directly from person to
person by breathing the air which surrounds the sick; but enteric
or typhoid fever is very little, if at all, communicable in this way.
It is spread, as it were, in an indirect manner by means of the dis
charges from the bowels, not in their fresh state, but some time
after they have left the body of the patient, and when they are in
the form of sewage, undergoing decomposition or putrefaction.
These discharges, by oozing from drains or cesspools, find their way
through the soil into the drinking water, and are swallowed, or else
the effluvia rising from them are inhaled, and thus the disease is
communicated. Another terrible epidemic disease, Asiatic cholera,
is also held, on carefully considered grounds, to be propagated
mainly in this indirect manner by means of the decomposing bowel
discharges of the sick. From the obscurity attending its mode of
propagation, the infectiousness of typhoid fever, as of cholera, was
long doubted or denied, and is difficult to trace in large towns,
where the houses are connected together by a network of drains ;
but in country places it is much more evident. Cases have again
and again been observed in which typhoid fever has been imported
by persons affected with it into country villages where it had not
previously been known for years, perhaps not within human
memory, and the disease has spread from them as from a centre—
facts which conclusively demonstrate its infectious nature.
Few, if any, now deny that typhoid fever is infectious ; but the
question has of late years been repeatedly debated, whether infec
tion is its only cause, or whether it can also arise spontaneously or
de novo, that is to say, from any other cause than infection ? Dr.
William Budd has urged with particular force and ability the
former doctrine, and his conclusions have been very widely accepted
among the medical profession. He holds the view just explained,
that typhoid fever is usually due to poisoning by sewage, but
that, whenever sewage acts in this virulent and deadly manner,
the reason is that it contains the stools of typhoid patients.
Ordinary sewage not containing typhoid stools has, he contendsf
no power whatever to produce the disease. On the other hand,
the doctrine that typhoid fever is sometimes generated spon
taneously has been advocated by the late Dr. Charles Murchison, in
an elaborate and most valuable work on “ The Continued Fevers of
Great Britain” (2nd ed., 1873). Dr. Murchison gives numerous
cases showing that typhoid fever is communicable from the sick to
the healthy—a conclusion which, he says, “with such facts before
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
23
us, it is impossible to deny but he also holds that the disease is
BOmetimes produced afresh by a poison derived from ordinary
sewage not containing any admixture of typhoid stools. He says :
“It may be generated independently of a previous case by the fer
mentation of fsecal and, perhaps, other organic matter and this
is an opinion which is shared by many other medical men. Accord
ing to Dr. Murchison, moreover, the poison of typhus fever, a
highly and unmistakeably infectious disease, is sometimes “genefated de novo in the exhalations of living human beings, by over
crowding and bad ventilation,” especially in circumstances of great
poverty, dirt, and insufficiency of food ; but this view has, I think,
met with comparatively few supporters in this country.
In his article in the Nineteenth Century, Sir Thomas Watson
vigorously combats Dr. Murchison’s views on these two points,
and endeavours to show that neither typhus nor typhoid fever
has ever any other source than infection. The extreme importance
of this question can be readily understood. Our power to prevent
a disease depends on our knowledge of its cause, and it seems to
me that the question whether infectious disorders can also arise
spontaneously is in reality the most important of all questions
Relating to the causation of disease, from the vast practical conse
quences involved in it. In all efforts to prevent and eradicate
infectious diseases, the question of their spontaneous origin presents
itself, and few subjects in medicine have been so long and so
vehemently debated. It was discussed several hundred years ago
With reference to the plague, and within the present century the
controversy has been renewed again and again, not only in regard
to every one of the contagious fevers already enumerated, but also
to many other contagious maladies, among which I may mention
Asiatic cholera, yellow fever, relapsing fever, diphtheria, syphilis,
hydrophobia, glanders, and malignant pustule. The very same
question has been often discussed as regards the principal con
tagious diseases of the domestic animals, namely, rabies, glanders,
anthrax or splenic fever (which produce respectively, when inocu
lated on man, the very fatal affections of hydrophobia, glanders,
and malignant pustule), the cattle plague, pleuro-pneumonia or
infectious lung disease, sheep-pox, swine plague, and foot and
mciith disease. If we take these eight diseases in man, along
With the six infectious fevers prevalent among us, and also the
plague, which still exists in some countries, they form together
fifteen affections of the utmost gravity, besides eight most destruc
tive disorders of the domestic animals, the cause of almost all of
which is held very widely, and of many of them nearly universally,
by the best medical and veterinary authorities, to reside in con
tagion alone, while our hopes of preventing and extinguishing them
are inseparably bound up with the question whether or not they
can also arise spontaneously. If they are propagated by contagion
alone, their prevention is much easier, and their extinction is pos
sible ; but it) unfortunately, they can also arise in other ways,
�24
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
their prevention is far more difficult, and we cannot hope to
extinguish them. A few years ago, Professor Tyndall, as chair
man at a lecture delivered by Dr. Corfield, pointed out the extra
ordinary importance of the doctrine that infectious fevers “ breed
true,” and never arise spontaneously. He said that “ he entirely
agreed with all that the lecturer had stated as to these diseases
‘ breeding true,’ for they never found the virus of small-pox pro
ducing typhoid, or vice versa. The subject was one of the most
important -which could engage the attention of the scientific
physician, for in the whole range of medical art and science there
was not a subject of equal importance. But in applying to daily
practice this question of infectious diseases, the physician must
not stand alone—he ought to be aided by the sympathy of an
enlightened public.” On another occasion Professor Tyndall
quoted on this subject the words of the famous French chemist
and experimenter, M. Pasteur, who says, “ Man has it in his
power to cause parasitic diseases to disappear off the surface of the
globe, if, as we firmly believe, the doctrine of spontaneous genera
tion is a chimera.” The question as to the spontaneous origin of
infectious diseases has been so long under discussion, without being
yet decided, that there must evidently be something very difficult
in its settlement; and as it is a question of such vital interest to
human happiness, I may perhaps be permitted here to refer very
briefly to the arguments which Dr. Murchison brings forward
in favour of the spontaneous origin of typhus and of typhoid
fever.
I may remark, in the first place, that in order to prove an in
fectious disease to be capable also of arising spontaneously, it is
necessary to show one of two things—either that in a certain case
or cases infection cannot be the cause of the disease, or else that
some other influence, such as overcrowding or bad drainage, has
produced it. In other words, it is necessary to prove either the
negative proposition that the disease in some cases does not arise
from infection, or the positive or affirmative proposition that it
does arise from some other given cause.
Now in seeking to establish the first or negative proposition, the
main argument which Dr. Murchison uses is that several cases of
typhus and of typhoid fever, whose circumstances he relates, could
not, on careful enquiry, be traced to any exposure to infection as
their source. There was, he says, “ no evidence of infection ” to
be found in the history of these cases. But this argument, which
has always been the one most strenuously urged in such discussions,
is admitted by Dr. Murchison himself to be quite fallacious in
regard to small-pox. He recognises the well-known fact that in
certain cases of small-pox, as indeed of all infectious disorders, no
evidence of infection can be found, and yet he holds that small
pox never arises spontaneously at the present day. Speaking of
infectious diseases, he says: “ Some of them, such as Variola
(small-pox), are not only extremely contagious, but at the present
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
25
day can nev yr be traced to any other cause than contagion. Whole
continents, such as America and Australia, have remained exempt
from them until they were introduced by an infected person. It
is true that now and then we cannot trace even these diseases to
contagion.” If then the argument is admittedly of no avail to
prove that small-pox can arise spontaneously, why should it be
relied on in other infectious complaints ? How can that be a good
argument for typhus or typhoid fever which is allowed to be a bad
one for small-pox ?
In answer to this obvious question, Dr. Murchison says that
there are mr.ny more cases of typhoid fever than of small-pox
which cannot be traced to contagion. This, however, is probably
to be accounted for by the very obscure and indirect mode of pro
pagation in the former disease, and there is reason to believe that
the number of unexplained cases will diminish as we gain a fuller
knowledge of the different channels or vehicles by which the in
fection may be conveyed.
We can easily see how unreliable is any argument founded
merely on negative grounds like the above when we consider the
extremely subtle and insidious nature of the poisons that give rise
to the infectious fevers. These poisons are invisible, they can be
carried long distances and kept, under favourable circumstances, for
an indefinite time, and moreover they can be communicated, not
only by the patient himself, both during his illness and his conva
lescence, but by everything that has been in his neighbourhood. A
person suffering from an infectious fever exhales constantly into
the air a multitude of extremely minute infectious particles, which
cling tenaciously to all the surrounding objects and persons, and
can be transmitted by them. There are thus three ways in which
these fevers can be communicated: either by the patients, by
tainted or contaminated objects, or by tainted persons ; the tainted
objects, or “ fomites,” as they are often called, acting simply as
©atriers of the poison, while the “tainted” or “suspected” persons
act not only in this way, but also as themselves perhaps infected
with the disease and already suffering from it in its latent or incu
bative stage. When we add to this that the little infectious
particles can be transported to a great distance in clothing, bedding,
furniture or other goods, drinking water, milk, etc., as well as by
persons, and that if kept from the air or dried, they may long
retain their virulent properties—a cloak, for instance, having been
known to give scarlet fever after being laid by for eighteen months,
and the poison of anthrax or the splenic fever of cattle having
been found active after keeping for four years—we can understand
how little warrant there is for inferring positively from the mere
fact that we cannot trace infection in a particular case that there
fore infection does not exist. The argument would be wellfounded if the case were a solitary one, and occurred in an island
or other locality having no communication whatever with adjacent
parts; but in a populous country where there are always many
�26
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
other cases of the same disease to he found, and where more or
less intercourse takes place, even with the remotest districts, it is
rarely possible to exclude entirely the chance of infection, and
unless this can be done the reasoning is evidently inconclusive.
In seeking to prove that typhus and typhoid fever, besides
being infectious, can arise spontaneously or de novo, Dr. Murchison
relies not only on the negative evidence afforded by our inability
to trace infection in particular cases of these diseases. He holds
that there is also positive evidence to show that typhus fever may
be produced by overcrowding and deficient ventilation, especially
among squalid, dirty, and ill-fed persons ; and that typhoid fever
is sometimes generated, independently of infection, by the fer
mentation of sewage and perhaps other organic matters. The
third kind of infectious disease described in his very able work
on “ The Continued Fevers of Great Britain ” is relapsing fever
(a less dangerous affection, always attended by a relapse, and
occurring from time to time in epidemics, especially in Ireland);
and this disease also he holds to be sometimes generated afresh by
famine or prolonged scarcity of wholesome and nutritious food.
The reason which he gives is that in cases where infection could
not be traced, the above influences were present, and appear to
him to have produced the diseases.
Now the causes here assigned by Dr. Murchison are the very
ones which have at all times been popularly believed to have a
power of breeding infectious fevers. Overcrowding and bad ven
tilation, dirt and squalor, the concentrated exhalations of numerous
uncleanly human beings pent up together in close and ill-smelling
rooms, prisons, or ships ; the foul effluvia rising from sewers and
cesspools, from graveyards, and other collections of putrefying
animal or vegetable substances; war, with its sieges and battle
fields. and its multitudes of unburied bodies polluting the air and
the water; and famine with its wasted victims—to these causes,
either singly or combined, it has been usual to attribute outbreaks,
not only of typhus and typhoid, but of nearly every other kind
of infectious fever, including the plague, scarlet fever, and small
pox. Even the best medical authorities commonly held such
views before the publication, in 1811, of Dr. Bancroft’s invaluable
work treating on febrile contagion. “Most writers on the subject
of contagious fever,” says Dr. Bancroft, “ have either inculcated
or believed that it might be generated—first, by an accumulation
of those disgusting matters commonly denominated filth ; secondly,
by the offensive vapours emitted by corrupting dead bodies, or by
other matters in a putrid state ; and, thirdly, by crowding persons,
even when healthy, in ill-ventilated and unclean places.” Dr.
Bancroft maintained that, although these causes greatly favour
the diffusion of a contagious fever when once it has been intro
duced by a person suffering from it, yet of themselves they are
utterly unable to generate a single case ; and his reasonings, with
those of others, had so powerful an effect, that this immensely
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
27
important conclusion has been more and more widely received as
the true medical doctrine on the subject. “Never,” says Dr.
Murchison, “ has any work effected a greater revolution in pro
fessional opinion in this country. The doctrine of Bancroft was
generally adopted.” The chief argument used by Dr. Bancroft
was the one to which I have already referred—namely the complete
and prolonged absence of the contagious fevers till introduced by an
infected person, though the other causes alleged to be capable of
producing them are in full operation.
Thus Dr. Bancroft showed that, among the Esquimaux and
Greenlanders, in slave-ships, and in Continental prisons, there was
no typhus, in spite of over-crowding and bad ventilation together
with filth, hunger, and squalor, often in the most aggravated
degree. Typhus fever, it may be remarked, is the disease which
has been popularly known by various names, such as “camp fever,”
“ship fever,” or “gaol fever,” from the frequency with which it
has decimated armies in the field, and used formerly to infest
emigrant ships and the English prisons. Epidemics of typhus
have repeatedly occurred in most parts of Europe, especially when
imported into them by war ; but at ordinary times the disease is
not so widely spread as enteric or typhoid fever, which is a pre
valent affection in almost all countries. Typhus, on the other
hand, has its peculiar abode in some of the large towns of Great
Britain, and, above all, in Ireland, where it has always been fear
fully common and destructive; while in the rural districts of
England, throughout the whole of France, and in many other parts
of the Continent, it is very little known. “ In the country districts
of England,” says Dr.Murchison, “typhus is a rare disease ; almost
all the examples of 1 typhus ’ reported as occurring in small country
towns and villages are really cases of enteric fever.” He says
also : “ The disease is at all times so rare throughout France
that few French physicians have ever seen it;” and adds : “ It is
especially to be noted that in many parts of the Continent of
Europe where typhus never occurs in time of peace, it becomes
epidemic in time of war.” But over-crowding and defective ven
tilation, dirt and privations of all kinds, are exceedingly common
in the rural parts and small towns of England, as well as in France,
and indeed everywhere among the very poor ; and this seems
plainly to show that such causes are not of themselves able to give
rise to typhus fever.
Again, as regards typhoid or enteric fever, that it cannot be
generated merely by the fermentation of ordinary sewage may be
seen from the fact that multitudes of people habitually breathe
air, or drink water polluted by sewage without ever contracting
the disease. In such towns as London, and still more Paris, as Sir
Thomas Watson observes, more or less of sewer air almost always
finds its way into the houses even of the wealthiest classes ; and in
country places, where there are no sewers, the drinking water is very
frequently tainted, from the dangerous practice which prevails of
�28
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
having the pumps or shallow wells in too close proximity to the
privy and cesspit, and allowing the excremental matters to soak
into the soil. The Rivers Pollution Commissioners say in their
report that estimating the town population of Great Britain at
about fifteen millions of people, “ the remaining twelve millions
of country population derive their water almost exclusively from
shallow wells, and these are, so far as our experience extends,
almost always horribly polluted by sewage and by animal matters
of the most disgusting origin.” Yet in many country villages
where such water is used, typhoid fever is entirely absent for
years, till a case is imported which gives rise to a local epidemic
of the disease. An outbreak of the kind in the village of Nunney,
in which seventy-six persons were attacked out of a population of
832, and which was traced to the fact that the bowel-discharges of
a typhoid-fever patient had been allowed to mil gl j with the
drinking water, is thus commented upon by the emir ent authority
on Hygiene, the late Dr. Parkes. “ The case,” he says in his
“ Manual of Practical Hygiene,” seems quite clear—first that the
water caused the disease ; and secondly, that though polluted with
excrement for years, no enteric fever appeared until an imported
case introduced the virus. Positive evidence of this kind seems
conclusive, and I think that we may now safely believe that the
presence of typhoid evacuations in the water is necessary. Com
mon faecal matter may produce diarrhoea, which may perhaps be
febrile, but for the production of enteric fever the specific agent
must be present.” Facts such as these seem to show clearly that
neither typhus nor typhoid fever can be generated by the causes
assigned by Dr. Murchison. How can a disease be said to proceed
from a cause which, in numberless instances, over wide areas and
during long periods of time, though constantly and powerfully
operating never gives rise to a single case of it ?
Whenever a cause is given and known, we can try it in the
above manner, by observing its action at different times and places,
and under a variety of circumstances ; and notone of the numerous
influences supposed to generate the infectious fevers has been able
to withstand this test. Indeed, our belief that these diseases have
no other source than infection is mainly founded on the fact that
every other cause which we see operating around us fails in count
less instances to produce them. But when the cause is not given
or known, and it is merely alleged that some cause, other than in
fection, is capable of generating an infectious fever, we cannot
entirely disprove this assertion, since we do not know all the causes
that may possibly exist in nature. As Mr. Simon observes : “ To
say that a disease is contagious is not to say that it cannot arise
without contagion.” It seems to me to be this difficulty in proving
a negative which has so long prevented the settlement of the con
troversy. We cannot show that the spontaneous origin of the
contagious fevers is impossible, but only that it is not proved, and
that all the evidence adduced in its favour is inconclusive. We
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
29
hold, moreover, that such a mode of origin is not only unproved,
but very improbable ; in the first place, because every known agent
whose effects have been carefully watched seems incapable of
producing them, so that if they really have any other source than
contagion it is an unknown one ; and secondly, because their pro
longed absence from extensive areas where a multitude of causes
under a great variety of conditions are at work, renders it unlikely
that any cause whatever, except contagion, is able to generate
them. With respect to small-pox, which has been absent for cen
turies from whole continents, till introduced by a person suffering
from it, the improbability of its ever originating de novo is so great
as to amount to a practical certainty ; and although the question
as regards typhoid fever is a much more difficult one, yet if we
consider the very significant facts that typhoid fever has no other
known and proved cause than infection, that many of the cases
formerly thought spontaneous have been shown to depend on in
fection conveyed in drinking-water, milk, etc., and also that the
disease is often entirely absent for long periods from country
districts till imported into them, we have strong grounds for be
lieving that typhoid fever has never in reality any other than an
infectious source.
Besides the foregoing arguments, which are the chief ones, Dr.
Murchison brings forward two others, on which I would like to say
a few words, on account of the extreme importance of the ques
tions connected with them. The first is an argument from analogy.
He points out that “ there are certain contagious diseases, such as
erysipelas, pyaemia, and puerperal fever,” which are well known to
be capable also of arising spontaneously or de novo, and infers from
analogy that typhus and typhoid fever can probably do so likewise.
In order to understand what is the force of this argument, it will
be necessary to advert very briefly to the other great leading divi
sion of infectious diseases, the inflammatory and septic group,
with which, as well as with those previously mentioned, it is most
important that the public should be acquainted.
There is a numerous class of diseases— some of them of very
common occurrence, and others terribly fatal—which have the
power of arising, not only from infection, but also independently
of this source, and which, therefore, we can never hope completely
to abolish or extinguish. Among them are purulent ophthalmia,
common catarrhal ophthalmia, gonorrhoea, erysipelas, dissection
wound poisoning, pycemia and septicaemia, puerperal fever, hospital
gangrene or phagedoma, and dysentery. These may be called the
'non-specific, or not purely infectious diseases, in contradistinction
to the specific, or purely infectious disorders, already considered.
I may remark here that the word “specific,” as applied to a disease,
is often used in a different sense from this to signify merely pecu
liar or special, as opposed to common or ordinary ; but of late
years it has been frequently employed in the very important sense
here intended, namely, to signify “like a species.” A specific
�30
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
disease, in the latter sense of the term, is a disease which resembles
a species of plants or animals, in having singularly regular and
unvarying characters, and also more especially in the fact that it
has only one kind of cause—in other words, that it always arises
by infection from another disease like itself, just as the members
of a living species always descend from parents like themselves.
A non-specific infectious disease, on the other hand, can arise from
other sources as well as from infection.
Now. there is this wide difference between the infectious dis
orders belonging to the non-specific class and typhus and typhoid
fever, that, in the former the power of or ginating without infec
tion has been proved, while in the latter, as we have seen, it is not
proved. It has been conclusively shown, partly by the observation
of the sick, and partly by experiments on animals, that all the ten
infectious disorders just enumerated (except the last of them,
dysentery) can be generated by introducing into the blood, or
applying to a mucous surface, the products of ordinary inflam
mation or putrefaction. Recent researches have ascertained the
fact that inflammatory products, such as pus, are all more or less of
a contagious nature, and tend to excite a similar inflammation in
other parts or persons. Thus one of the highest authorities on
infectious diseases, Dr. Burdon Sanderson, who investigated the
subject of contagion under the direction of the Privy Council and
their eminent medical officer, Mr. John Simon, says : “ In a certain
sense it has been long familiar that an inflamed part is a focus from
which irritating material is distributed to healthy parts by radia
ting lines of absorption; but it is only of late years that it has
been distinctly seen and recognised clinically that every exudation
liquid of an inflamed part carries more or less with it the pro
perties of an inflammation-producing virus.” In like manner, Mr.
Simon, in one of his Reports to the Privy Council, speaks of the
“ essential contagiousness ” of the inflammat ry process. He says :
“Inflammatory excitement tends to diffuse itself. Within limits,
hitherto not defined, inflammations, both common and specific, are
communicable from part to part and from parson to person.” I
may add the opinion of Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson, who says : “ Let
us accept clearly the doctrine, so essential to the explanation of
numerous p ithological phenomena, that all living pus is contagious,
and is capable of producing an inflammation similar to that in
which it originated.” Putrid or septic matters also, such as
ichorous fluids or putrescent pus, are highly p nsonous, and when
introduced into the blood, or absorbed into it from the surface of
a wound, they give rise to the frightfully fatal diseases, pyaemia
ind septicaemia. These affections, together with hospital gangrene,
ire commonly termed the septic diseases, and aie one of the chief
ilaDgers to which patients suffering from wounds are exposed,
whether the wounds have resulted from injuries or from surgical
operations, --bout a third of the deaths after operations in the
Londop 'mspitals being due to pyaemia. Another disease often
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
31
arising from the noxious influence of putrefying substances upon
wounds is erys pelas, which is included by some surgeons among
the septic diseases. Puerperal fever also—that fearful malady
whose real nature was first pointed out by Dr. Robert Ferguson,
and which he describes as “ the most fatal of those peculiar to
women, as seven-eighths of the total mortality in child-birth are
owing to it ”—is essentially a septic disease, consisting of various
forms of pyaemia, sep'icaemia, and internal erysipelas, caused by
absorption into the blood of decomposing matters from the inner
surface of the uterus, which, after delivery, partakes of the charac
ters of a wound.
All the septic diseases are particularly apt to be generated by
the overcrowding of patients suffering from suppurating wounds,
which loads the air with putrescent animal products, and hence
they are sure to be of frequent occurrence in close and ill-venti
lated surgical hospitals. “ Overcrowding of patients after opera
tions,” says Mr. Erichsen, in his “ Science and Art of Surgery,”
“ is one of the most fertile causes of disease and death ; for the
overcrowding of wounded people, whether the wounds be accidental
or surgical, will inevitably produce one of the four septic diseases
—phagedsena, septicaemia, pyaemia, or erysipelas.” When once
produced by such means, they are afterwards propagated by infec
tion from one person to another ; the infection having this pecu
liarity, that it can act only on wounded people, since the poison
apparently cannot affect the system except through a wound.
Hence these diseases belong rather to surgery than to medicine,
and are often called the traumatic or surgical infections. Before
their generation by the overcrowding of the wounded, and their
propagation by infection, were clearly understood, the mortality
from septic disease in civil and military hospitals and in lying-in
institutions was sometimes perfectly appalling. An important
fact, pointed out by Dr. Burdon Sanderson and M. Davaine, and
which help- to explain the generation of these disorders, is that
their virulence is greatly increased by transmission from one animal
to another ; so that from a product at first but slightly contagious
there may be developed, after a few transmissions, a most deadly
poison. Even without any transmission, however, a contagious
poison of the utmost intensity can be rapidly generated, de novo,
by inflammatory and septic processes in the body ; as may be seen
from the fact that an unhealthy inflammation of the peritoneum,
excited by a purely non-infectious cause, such as a surgical opera
tion, may give rise to an effusion of serum and pus so virulent,
that the mere prick of a needle dipped in it is enough to occasion
death by septicaemia. Many medical men have lost their lives by
blood-poisoning from dissection wounds of this nature.
With regard to dysentery—one of the most destructive diseases
of hot climates—its mode of origin is very different from that of
the septic affections. The contagiousness of dysentery has only
been recognised of late years, and seems to be confined to the
�32
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
epidemic form of the disease prevalent in the tropics, while the
scattered cases which occur in this and other temp -rate countries
are not held to be contagious. As in the case of cholera and
t\ phoid fever, the infection is, in all probability, conveyed chiefly
by means of the discharges. The peculiar exciting cause of dysen
tery appears to be a miasma or malaria, generated in hot, swampy
districts, and closely allied to the malaria which gives rise to ague ;
the word miasma or malaria being commonly used to denote a
poisonous matter bred outride the body, while a contayium is one
which breeds and multiplies within the body itself. Since dysen
tery may arise from a miasm as well as from contagion, and since
the inflammatory and sepfic infections can be generated by the
products of ordinary inflammation and putrefaction, it is evident
that we can never hope to abolish these diseases, however greatly
they may be reduced m amount by human skill and energy.
The diseases which can be abolished, and on which above all
others, therefore, the attention of society should be fixed, are the
zymotic diseases, strictly so called. The word zymotic signifies
“ like a fermentation,” and is often employed in a looser sense so
as to include all infectious dise ises, and even some which are not
infectious; but Sir Thomas Watson, in his article on “ The
Abolition of Zymotic Disease,” restricts the term to a certain
group of infectious disorders, consisting of small-pox, scarlet fever,
measles, and others, which in their course and symptoms most
nearly resemble a fermentation. The resemblance between these
maladies and a fermentation, as pointed out by Liebig, is in many
respects very striking. Thus, for example, when a ferment, such
as yeast, is added to a fermentable liquid, there is first a period of
quiescence; then follows a period of disturbance, with rise of
temperature, during which two periods a great multiplication of
the ferment takes place ; next comes a stage of subsidence or
decline; and afterwards there remains an immunity or insuscep
tibility to the further action of that ferment. In like manner,
when the virus of a zymotic disease, such as small-pox or measles,
enters the body, there is first a period of quiescence or incubation ;
then a stage of disturbance, attended with rise of temperature or
fever, an eruption on the skin, and a great multiplication of the
virus or infecting matter ; then a stage of decline or defervescence ;
and, lastly, an immunity from the further action of that contagion.
The stages not only follow one another in regular order, but each
of them lasts a certain time, which varies but little in different
cases of the same disease. There is a large group of infectious
disorders, both in man and the domestic animals, presenting the
remarkable characters here described, and it is these disorders
which are specific, or, in other words, which resemble species in
having only one kind of cause, and in being therefore liable to
extinction. Many of them are admitted almost universally to arise
at the present day from contagion alone, and not one has been
proved to have anv other mode of origin. Op the other hand, the
�TIIE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
‘Septic and inflammatory group of disorders have not such regular
and unvarying symptoms, and none of them give immunity from
future attacks : and these are the non-specific infectious diseases,
that is to say, the class which can arise from other sources as well
as from infection. But typhus and typhoid fever, and the former
more especially, have well-marked zymotic characters of intubation
fever and eruption, regular stages and lesions, and subsequent
immunity, and Sir Thomas Watson includes them among the true
zymotic diseases. Their real analogy is to small-pox and scarlet
fever and not to pyaemia and erysipelas, with which Dr. Murchison
compares them, and this seems a strong argument against their ever
originating de novo. Dr. Buchanan, the present medical officer of
the Privy Council and Local Government Board, says, in his article
on Typhus Fever in “Reynolds’s System of Medicine,” in dis
cussing Dr. Murchison’s theory : “ The most serious obstacle to the
reception of this theory arises from the analogy of other specific
diseases, as to the present production of 'which by contagion, and
contagion alone, there can be no question.” The argument from
analogy, therefore, instead of supporting Dr. Murchison’s view,
seems rather to tell very strongly against it.
The last of Dr. Murchison’s arguments to which I shall refer is
of an a priori character, and is one which has been repeatedly
brought forward in discussing the spontaneous origin of the in
fectious fevers. It is urged that such a mode of origin is not only
possible, but must actually have taken place when the diseases first
came into existence, since the first cases must have arisen with
out infection ; and as this has happened once, why, it is asked,
might the same thing not happen again ? “ In the first sufferer
from a contagious disease,” says Dr. Murchison, “ its origin
must have been
novo, and there is no reason why the unknown
causes of the first case may not operate at the present day.” But
Dr. Murchison himself disregards this argument when he concludes,
from a careful survey of the facts, that small-pox and some other
disorders never now arise de novo ; and it is evidently by facts, and
not by speculative considerations, that the question has mainly to
decided. Still there is one thing, a knowledge of which would
be of immense value, and might aid us in forming an opinion on
this and every other point relating to infection. If we knew what
rhe poisons that give rise to infectious diseases real/y are—if we
knew their intimate nature, and how they produce the extra
ordinary phenomena of infection—we might be able to say
whether or not it is likely that they should ever be generated
Sp mtaneously. This brings us to the great question which of late
years has occupied, more than almost any other, the attention of
medical inquirers, namely, wliat, is contagiumt and how do the
different kinds of contagia produce their effects?—the word
contagium, in the plural contagia, being used to denote the
material substance or poison which gives rise to a contagious
disease. When we have carefully considered what the couc
�34
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIONS DISEASES.
tagia really are, we shall be in abetter position to decide as to their
modes of origin, and also as to the possibility of their utter extinction.
Till within the last twenty or thirty years the nature of con
tagion remained an inscrutable mystery and standing enigma in
medicine, and more has been done in the present generation than
in all past ages to clear up the difficulty. The explanation of the
facts of infection now given by the best authorities is contained
in the great theory known as “the Germ Theory of infectious
diseases,’’ and also called the doctrine of contagium vivum and
miasma vivvm (living contagium and living miasm), which Dr.
Liebermeister regards as “perhaps the most important questions
which have ever busied the medical world.” According to this
doctrine, the different contagia are in reality different kinds of
extremely minute living beings, which produce disease by growing
and multiplying in the body of the patient, and communicate
infection by passing from the body of one person or animal int o
that of another. These little organisms are generally considered
to be plants belonging to the bacteria, a tribe of the lower fungi,
and they have received various names, su'-h as microbes, micro
phytes, microzymes (Lttle living things, little plants, little fer
ments), on account of their vital properties, or else, from their
peculiar forms, they have been called bacteria, bacilli, spirilla,
micrococci, etc. (that js, rod-like bodies, very minute rods, little
spiral filaments, or little rounded organisms). Each kind of contagium attacks by p eference certain parts and tissues of the body,
and hence the pecubar symptoms and lesions that characterise the
different infectious diseases. If this view be correct, it is evident
that the contagia are not. properly speaking, poisons but parasites;
and the reason why certain disorders are called specific and never
arise but from infection, is that they are caused by distinct species
of living organisms which, like other species, are kept up only by
continuous propigation. Like other species, too, they might be
completely extirpated by human intelligence and energy. In Let,
the battle with contagious fevers and specific disorders is nothing
else than a war of extermination against a class of excessively
minute disease and death-producing parasites, which, though the
smallest of living beings, are infinitely mnre dangerous and deadly
to mankind than any venomous reptile or beast of prey.
The truth of the germ theory in its main features seems now to
be firmly established, and is admitted by large numbers of the most
eminent medical and scientific authorities in this and other countries.
On this point I may quote the opinion of Dr. Burdon Sanderson, who,
in 1870, in discussing the doctrine that the little particles found in
contagious liquids “ are organised beings, and that their powers of
producing disease are due to their organic development,” says :
“ We have accepted the doctrine as the only one which affords a
satisfactory explanation of the facts of infection.” Mr. John
Simon, in his Address as President of the Public Health Section
at the International Medical Congress held in London in 1881,
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES
35
says: “ We have learnt, as regards those diseases of the animal
l)ody which are due to various kinds of external cause, that pro
bably all the most largely fatal of them (it is impossible yet to
say how many) represent bur, one single kind of cause, and respec
tively depend on invasion of the animal body by some rapidly
multiplying form of alien life.” At the same Congress, Professor
Klebs, of Prague, read a paper on the subject, in which he says :
The conclusion which appears tome to follow inevitably from
■this short survey of the results of modern investigation is this—
that specific communicable diseases are produced by specific
organisms.” In the discussion following the ] aper, Dr. Virchow,
the eminent German pathologist, observed that “ the study of
pathological anatomy had been greatly changed by the discovery of
parasitic organisms.” I may quote also the opinion of M. Bern
heim, who says, in his article on “ Contagion ” in the “ DictionBaire Encyclopedique des Sciences Medicales” (1874) : “Now we
ghall see that the results of existing science tend precisely to make
the contagia be regarded as animal or vegetable parasites, and
that consequently between contagious maladies and parasitic
maladies there is perhaps no essential difference.” In like manner,
Dr. Frankland, president of the Institute of Chemistry, says:
“ The researches of Chauveau, Burdon Sanderson, Klein, and
fethers, scarcely leave room for doubt that the specific poisons of
the so-called zymotic diseases consist of organised and living
®rganic matter.” In an address delivered in St. James’ Hall
during the London Congress of 1881, the celebrated chemist,
M. Pasteur, who has done so much to promote the knowledge of
this subject, alluded to his own “labours during the past twentyfive years upon the nature of ferments—their life and their
nutrition, their preparaiion in a pure state by the introduction of
organisms under natural and artificial conditions—labours which
have established the principles and methods of microbism.”
It was M. Pasteur’s brilliant researches on fer mentation ana
putrefaction that led the way to the discovery of the true causes
of infectious disorders. Fermentation is a process which occurs
When a fermentable compound, such as sugar, is pla< ed in coni act
with gluten, casein, albumen, or other nitrogenous substance, pro
vided air be admitted ; and it was held by Liebig that the ferments
in such a case are the dead nitrogenous substances, which begin to
decompose when acted on by the oxygen of the air, and thus in
duce changes in the sugar. But M. Pasteur showed that in every
fermentation, properly so-called, the alcoholic, the viscous, the
lactic, etc., little, living beings are present, which are the real fer
ments or agents in the process. Fermentation consists, in fact, in
the changes arising from the growth and multiplication of a microgoopic plant, whose germ is at first brought by the air, but which
afterwards lives without air, feeding on the sugar and the nitrogenised substances, and using their elements to build up its own
tissues. “When sugar is placed in the presence of gluten, or
C 2
�36
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE3.
casein, or an animal membrane,” says M. Pasteur, in a notice of
bis researches published in 1861, “it is not the nitrogenised matter
which is the ferment. The true ferment consists in a microscopic
vegetable, the germ of which is brought by the air at the com
mencement, and which multiplies itself, taking its carbon from
the sugar, its nitrogen and its phosphates from the gluten or tbe
casein.” In his “ Studies on Fermentation,” a translation of
which was published in 1*79, he says : “ The essential point of the
theory of fermentation, which we have been concerned in proving
in preceding paragraphs, may be briefly put in the statement that
ferments, properly so-called, constitute a class of beings possessing
the faculty of living out of contact with free oxygen; or, more
concisely still, we may say fermentation is a result of life without
air.” Putrefaction also, which is a kind of fermentation accom
panied by foul smells, was shown by M. Pasteur to be due to the
action of little living organisms, the septic bacteria, whose germs
are derived from the air. By a beautiful series of experiments,
which were confirmed by the researches of Professor Tyndall, he
showed that all ordinary air contains large numbers of these germs,
and that if they be totally excluded by boiling, hermetically closing
vessels, or other means, animal and vegetable substances can be
kept for years without putrefying. As it appeared from these en
quiries that little living beings are the real causes of fermentation
and putrefaction, the question naturally presented itself whether
the infectious fevers, which are so like a fermentation, may not have
a similar source. Accordingly this great question was vigorously
attacked by M. Pasteur and a number of most able observers in
different countries. The methods by which they sought to solve
it were chiefly the search for organisms by an examination under
the microscope of the contagious products and the blood in the
various infectious disorders of men and animals ; the endeavour to
separate from one another the different parts of which contagious
liquids are composed, in order to determine which of them pos
sesses the virulent properties ; the chemical analysis of these
liquids to see whether they contain any chemical poison; the
artificial cultivation of the little organisms or microbes, that is to
say, rearing them in some nutrient fluid, such as serum or meat
juice, in which they can grow vigorously, so as to rid them of
impurities, and to study their nature and development; dnd also
testing the powers of infectious liquids, and of the little organisms
in the pure state, by experiments on animals, which formed an in
dispensable part of the inquiry. By these means a large amoun t
of evidence was obtained, which seems to show in the clearest
manner the truth of the germ theory.
The reasons now usually given in proof of the germ theory, are
drawn pirtlyfrom facts of infection that have long been known,
and partly from the results obtained more recently by the exami
nation of contagious liquids. Among the former, the two facts
on which Dr. Burdon Sanderson lays particular stress as showing the
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
37
contagia to be living beings, are their enormous multiplication within
the body of the patient, and also their long preservation and resist
ance to adverse surrounding influences outside the body. He holds
the germ theory to be “ the only one which affords a satisfactory
explanation of the facts of infection, and in particular of those
which tend to show that witbin the body of the infected individual
the particles of contagium rapidly reproduce themselves, while
out of the body they are capable of resisting for long periods the
influence of conditions which, if not restrained by organic action,
would produce chemical decomposition.” The multiplication of
the virus or infecting matter which takes place in a contagions
disease is extraordinary, and should be carefully noticed, as it is
one of the most important points relating to infection. “ A
quantity of small-pox matter not so big as a pin’s head,” says Dr.
Aitken, “ will produce many thousand pustules, each containing
fifty times as much of the specific pestilent matter as was originally
inserted ; and moreover the blood and all the secretions of the
body are equally infected with the specific poison of the pustules.
The miasmata from one child labouring under hooping-cough
are sufficient to infect a whole city.” This fact alone would seem
almost enough to show that a contagious virus must be organised
and living, for living beings are the only things we know of pos
sessing the faculty of reproduction or self-multiplication. No
chemical poison, whether of the inorganic or organic class, as
arsenic, or snake venom, has any power of reproducing itself, oris
evei’ multiplied in the body. Hence it takes a certain amount of
these poisons to produce death, and their effects are proportional
to the dose ; but the contagia can act in what is termed a minimal
dose, that is, a quantity quite impalpable and infinitesimal. Thus
Mr. Marson says of small-pox that “ a single breathing of the air
where it is, is enough to give the disease.” The reason of this
remarkable difference is that a chemical poison is not multiplied in
the body, whereas an infectious virus is rapidly multiplied, so that,
if once it gains a footing, the amount originally taken into the
system matters but little. Professor Naegeli, of Munich, in his
work on the “ Lower Fungi in their relation to Infectious Diseases”
(1877), holds this fact to be conclusive evidence .on the question.
“ The infectious matters,” he says, “ cannot be chemical com
pounds or collections of them, but can only be organised bodies,
because in this case alone is their increase conceivable from the
minimal quantity taken in, to the amount in which they become
dangerous to the human frame.”
Another important fact is the power of the contagia to retain
their virulence for long periods, sometimes for many years, outside
the body, and to resist changes of heat and cold, dryness and
moisture, or other influences which would speedily decompose and
destroy any dead organic matters. This accords well with what
we know of the bacteria and other minute organisms, which are
wonderfully tenacious of life, and moreover are able to exist in two
�38
TIIE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
states or forms—the one an active parent form when they are comp irativelv perishable, and the other an inactive form, as little buds
or spores, when they are very indestructible, and can continue in a
sort of dormant vitality for an indefinite time. It is on this
ground chiefly that Dr. Burdon Sanderson objects to a theory of
germs, differing from the one usually adopted, which has been
put forward by the distinguished physiologist and microscopist
Dr. Lionel Beale, in his work on “ Disease Germs ” (2nd ed,
1872). Dr. Beale holds as strongly as any one that the contaaia
are living and not dead substances. “ The only condition in which
matter is known to exhibit these powers of self-multiplication.”
he sa.vs, “ is the living state;” and be adds: “Every one will
admit that the particular forms of disease now under consideration
—the contagious fevers—r< suit from the introduction of living
particles of some form or other.” Assuming the infectious par
ticles to be living, however, there are evidently two suppositions
possible as to their nature; either they are independent organisms
or parasites coming from without, or else they are little living
cells or portions of protoplasm derived from the patient’s own
tissues. Dr. Beale adopts the latter alternative, and holds the
disease germs to be particles of degraded protoplasm, which are
capable of living independently, and can be engrafted on other in
dividuals, in whose bouies they can grow and multiply. This view,
however, is objected to by the great majority of observers here
and abroad, as purely hypothetical and wanting a real instance to
support it, and especially as being inconsistent with the fact that
many kinds of disease germs can live for such long periods out of
the body. “ Considering,” says Dr. Burdon Sanderson, “ that of
all perishable things protoplasm is among the most perishable—so
much so that no living particle of our bodies can be abstracted
from its place in the organism, even for five minutes, without
dying and being disintegrated—it appeared to me quite out of the
question to suppose, as Dr. Beale had suggested, that the particles
could be of this nature consistently with the astonishing power
which they evidently possess of retaining their activity for such
long periods, in spite of their being subjected to enormous varieties
of moisture, temperature, and all other conditions.” “If, then,
the doctrine of a contagium viviftn be true,” says Dr. William
Roberts, in his Address on Medicine to the British Medical Asso
ciation in 1877, “we are almost forced to the conclusion that
contagium consists (at least in the immense majority of cases) of
an independent organism or parasite.”
The results which have been obtained of late years by the
examination of contagious liquids with high powers of the micro
scope, relate in the first place to the physical characters of the con
tagia. Some infectious diseases, such as small-pox and measles,
are propagated through the air by inhalation ; while others, as
cow-pox and glanders, are communicated by inoculation with
liquid products, and hence it is often supposed that the infecting
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
39
matters must have the form of a vapour or a fluid. But if this
were so, it would follow that they cannot be living, for living
beings are always solid, and never fluid or gaseous bodies. A
closer scrutiny has shown, however, that the real infecting sub
stance, or contagium, is neither a fluid nor a vapour, but consists
in all cases of extremely minute solid particles. “ As regards the
physical characters of contagious liquids,” says Dr. Burdon Sander
son, “ the fundamental fact is that contagium is particulate.’'
This important fact was pointed out in 1865 by Dr. Chauveau,
Professor in the Veterinary School at Lyons, after a prolonged
inquiry into the virus of cow-pox and other contagious diseases.
When vaccine, or cow-pox lymph, is examined under the micro
scope, it is found to consist of three parts,—namely, first, of
corpuscles which are similar to ordinary pus globules, and are
sometimes few in number, or even entirely absent in good vaccine ;
Secondly of numerous particles, far more minute and not exceed
ing 2^00 of an inch in diameter : and thirdly, of a clear liquid in
which these bodies float. The larger corpuscles were separated by
Subsidence, and were found on inoculating them to be inert. The
Separation of the smaller particles could not be effected either by
subsidence or filtration, but was at last accomplished by what is
termed the method of diffusion ; that is, by bringing carefully a
little water into direct contact with the contagious liquid, when
the soluble and diffusible parts of the liquid mix with the water,
an<1 the insoluble ones are left behind. In this way the minute
particles were separated from the rest, and were found on inocula
tion to communicate cow-pox, whereas the fluid after being deprived
of them was found absolutely inactive. M. Chauveau investigated
in a similar manner the virus of small-pox, sheep-pox, and farcy
(a form of glanders), and with the same results. It thus appears
that when an infectious disease is communicated by means of a
fluid, or through the air, it is because the air or the fluid contains
little solid particles, invisible to the naked eye, which are the real
infecting substances ; and this fact is a strong additional argument
in favour of the view that the contagia are living beings.
Besides showing the physical characters of infectious liquids,
tecent investigations with the microscope have ascertained that in
some of them little vegetable organisms of peculiar shapes are
present ; and it is these organisms, and the inquiries to which they
have given rise, that most fully demonstrate the germ-theory.
“ The doctrine that microphytes have to do with the process of
contagion,” says Dr. Burdon Sanderson, “is based on two sorts of
observations, viz., those relating to the physical characters of con
tagious liquids, and those relating to the existence of organisms of
characteristic form in them.” “ There are four contagious diseases,”
he says also, in 1874, “in respect of which the presence in the
contagious liquids of forms of vegetation, differing from those met
with after death in the normal tissues or liquids of the body, or
during life in the products of primary or secondary inflammation,
�40
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
has been established. These are small-pox, sheep-pox, splenic
fever, and relapsing fever.” The first disease in which charac
teristic organisms were detected was splenic fever or anthrax—a
very deadly disorder of cattle, sheep, and horses, common in all
parts of the world, and inoculable on all kinds of animals, includ
ing men, in whom it produces the rapidly fatal affection called
malignant pustule. Dr. Davaine and Dr. Pollender, in 1855, or
even earlier, discovered in the blood of animals suffering from
splenic fever, a microscopic plant, to which the name of Bacillus
authracis has been given, and which consists of little rods or staffshaped bodies, endowed with the faculty of developing spores.
In relapsing fever also, an infectious disease peculiar to man.
Dr. Obermeier, in 1872, detected in the blood a little organism or
microbe, having the form of minute spiral threads or filaments,
and since called the Spirillum (Jbermeicri. The organisms which
have been discovered in the matter taken from small-pox pustules,
are of the kind called Micrococci, that is, little rounded bodies,
and exactly resemble the minute particles already described as
occurring in vaccine lymph.
Although these little bodies have been found by numerous
observers to be continually present in the above diseases, this fact
cannot in itself be regarded as sufficient evidence that the diseases
are due to them. The organisms might be the consequence rather
than the cause of the morbid state of the blood, and might be
simply carriers and not producers of the infecting virus. In order
to decide this point, therefore, it is evidently necessary to separate
the organisms and obtain them in a pure state, and then to try
whether by inoculation they are able to produce the disease , and
for this purpose a more perfect process of separation is needed
than that employed by M. Chauveau, which merely divided the
insoluble from the soluble and fluid portions of a contagious
liquid. We want to know the vital as well as the physical
characters of the organisms, and whether they are the real causes
of the disorders in which they occur. This object has been
attained by the very important purifying process called the method
of successive cultures, which is now generally used in these in
quiries, and may be briefly described as follows : A little drop of
the infectious liquid containing the microbes is introduced on the
point of a glass rod into a clear nutrient fluid, such as meat-juice,
which is kept nearly at blood-heat; the latter fluid having been
previously boiled, and the glass rod heated to redness to deprive
them of all other, organisms, and the neck of the vessel being
plugged with cotton wool so as to exclude any germs from the
atmosphere. In a few hours the nutrient fluid becomes turbid
from the growth of the microbes, which rapidly multiply and fill
the vessel. A little of the fluid from this vessel is then intro
duced in the same manner into another portion of nutrient fluid
in a second vessel, and when this becomes turbid, a drop from it is
transferred to a third vessel, and so on for ten, twenty, or any re
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
41
quired number of times. In this way the little organisms are
freed from all extraneous matter, and obtained as far as possible in
a pure state ; and if at the end of this process they exhibit under
the microscope the same appearance and power of development,
tod are found on inoculation to communicate the disease with the
same intensity as the infectious liquid from which they were
originally derived, it seems evidently to follow that they are the true
cause of the disease. M. Pasteur regards this method of inquiry
as indispensable, and as affording conclusive evidence on the sub
Ject. “ In the present state of science,” he says, “ the proof that
a microscopic organism is by its development a cause of disease
tod death, can only become peremptory on condition that succes
sive cultures of this organism have been obtained, indefinitely
repeated in liquids inert of themselves, and that these liquid.?
always show the same development, the same appearance of life,
associated with the same virulence, the same power of inoculation,
of disease, and of death.” The disease in which the organisms
Kave been most carefully studied and most fully proved to be the
real cause of the symptoms is splenic fever. On this point Dr.
^William Roberts observes, in the address already referred to, “ That
this organism (the bacillus) is the true virus of splenic fever has
long been probable ; and the labours of Bollinger, Davaine, Tiegel,
Klebs, and most of all, of Koch, have removed the last doubts on
the subject. Koch found without exception,” he continues, “that
if the tested material produced threads and spores in the incubator,
it Ao produced splenic fever when inoculated into the mouse ; and
on the contrary, if no such growth and development took place in the
fafittbator, the tested material produced no effect when inoculated
into the mouse. Proof could go no farther ; the infection abso
lutely followed the specific organism ; it came with it, it went
With it.” There are several other infectious diseases in which little
JKrganisms have been discovered of late years, as, for example,
erysipelas, diphtheria, gonorrhoea, and glanders ; while in some
jirtttiers none have yet been found, and we can only infer their presence from the similarity of the phenomena, though they are
probably too minute to be visible even with the highest powers of
the microscope.
fe- These minute parasitic organisms, which “ lie at the root of all
Infectious diseases,” to use Dr. Liebermeister’s words, may be
divided into two classes, between which there is a most important
difference. Some of them are what are called genuine or habitual
parasites, that is to say, they can live only in the animal body, and
in many cases only in the particular species of animal which they
infest; while others are occasional parasites, that is, they live and
htved habitually in the outer world, and only enter from time to
time, and under peculiar circumstances, into the bodies of animals.
This division of the parasites corresponds to the two main groups
of infectious diseases already adverted to, namely, the specific and
the non-specific infectious diseases ; the former being characterised
�42
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
by the presence of genuine, and the latter by that of occasional,
parasites. The reason why certain infectious disorders are called
specific is because, like species, they always descend from other
diseases like themselves ; a fact which clearly shows that the little
organisms found in them are always transmitted from one animal
to another, and cannot multiply and develop themselves, though
they may live for a season, outside the animal body. The non
specific disorders, on the other hand, can arise not only from infec
tion, but from other sources, and this proves that the organisms
associated with them are sometimes derived by transmission from
other animals, and sometimes come in from the external world. It
is evidently only the genuine parasites and the specific infectious
diseases that we can hope to exterminate ; whereas the occasional
parasites, being able to live outside, cannot be exterminated, and
r we can only guard ourselves against them, and against the diseases
in which they are found, by attentively studying the circumstances
which permit them to enter the body.
We have already seen how, according to the germ theory, infec
tion is produced, namely, by the microscopic organisms passing
from one animal into another, and we may now briefly advert to
the mode in which the non-specific infectious diseases are generated
in those cases where they arise spontaneously or de novo, that is,
from any other cause than infection. The most important and
fatal disorders of this class are the septic affections, such as septi
caemia, pyaemia, and puerperal fever, and the part which the little
organisms take in producing or complicating them has been investi
gated by numerous observers. In the blood and inflammatory pro
ducts of infectious septicaemia microphytes are constantly found,
which M. Pasteur has carefully studied by the method of succes
sive cultures, and has shown to be the true cause of the disease.
Dr. Chauvel, after giving an account of these researches in his
article on Septicaemia (1880). in the ‘ • Dictionnaire Encyclopedique
des Sciences Medicales.” says : “ It would follow, therefore, from
the experiments of Pasteur, that virulent septicaemia is due to the
introduction and multiplication in the economy of a microbe living
without air and a ferment, the septic vibrio.” This little organism,
according to M. Pasteur, M. Davaine, Dr. Burdon Sanderson, and
other authorities, is nothing else than one of the common bacteria,
or living ferments, which produce putrefaction, and which live
habitually in the air and water around us. Mr. John Simon speaks
of it as “the common ferment of putrid infusions,” and says that
“ apparently those ‘ pyaemic ’ and ‘ septicaemic ’ diseases have their
common essential cause in one morbid poison or contagium, which,
so far as can yet be discerned, is a particulate ferment of ordinary
putrefaction.”
I may here mention that the bacteria, the tribe of infinitesimally
minute plants to which all the contagia yet discovered belong, have
been made the subject of a special study by the distinguished
botanist Professor Cohn of Breslau, uid are described in his work
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
43
“ On Bacteria, the Smallest Living Beings ” (1872). The principal
forms of the bacteria are those already adverted to, micrococcus,
bacterium and bacillus, spirillum and vibrio, and they are so ex
cessively minute that the common rod-like bodies are only
of
an inch long, or one-third the width of an ordinary red blood
globule, while the micrococci do not exceed
of an inch in dia
meter. The bacteria live in the outer world, and are universally
diffused throughout the air, and especially in water, as they require
moisture to bring out their active properties. Tbeir part in the
economy of nature is a most important and indispensable one,
namely, to cause putrefaction and to break down and remove all
dead animal and vegetable substances ; and this power of destroy
ing the dead seems nearly related to the disastrous tendency which
they so often manifest to become parasitic and prey upon the living
animal body.
Since, then, the little organisms found in septicaemia have come
in from without, the question to be considered is, What are the cir
cumstances that enable them at first to enter the body, and render
them so virulent ? or, to express this in other words, how is septi
caemia produced when it arises de novo, and not by infection from
one animal to another ? At ordinary times the bacteria are per
fectly harmless, as may be seen from the fact that they are con
tinually entering our bodies by the lungs and alimentary canal, and
may be detected in some of the abdominal organs, such as the liver
and spleen. Into every little cut and wound of the skin also they
must constantly find their way, and yet the great majority of
wounds heal rapidly and without any ill effects. There are some
parts of the body, however, in which bacteria are never found,
namely, in healthy blood and muscle, as they are apparently at once
destroyed whenever they enter the circulating fluid. What is it,
then, that in septicaemia permits them to live and multiply in the
blood, and converts a microphyte, harmless and insignificant at
other times, into the most deadly of all known poisons? The
reason of this, as ascertained by the long-continued labours of in
quirers, is that, in the process of putrefaction, the bacteria produce
a chemical substance called the septic poison (just as, in fermenta
tion, the little yeast plant produces alcohol), and this poison, when
absorbed into the system from the surface of a wound, gives rise to
fever and inflammation, so as gradually to overcome the vital re
sistance of the blood and enable the bacteria to enter and breed in
it. The septic poison was first discovered in 1856 by Dr. Panum,
of Copenhagen, and was shown by him to be the immediate cause
of septicaemia. Like other chemical poisons, it is not multiplied in
the body, and its effects, unlike those of the contagia, are propor
tional to the dose. Hence an important distinction is now drawn
between two forms of septicaemia ; in the one, which is not infec
tious and is probably of common occurrence in ite slighter degrees,
the symptoms are due to the absorption of the septic poison from
a wound, and tie patient recovers, if the dose has not been too
�44
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
large; while the other is an infectious and most deadly disorder,
produced by the entrance and multiplication of the bacteria them
selves in the system. The properties of the bacteria are altered, so
that they become parasites on the living body, and their virulence,
as pointed out by M. Davaine, is enormously increased by trans
mission through the animal economy. Pyaemia also, a disease
closely allied, if not, as some think, identical with virulent septi
caemia in its nature and origin, is, like it, almost invariably fatal.
Dr. Burdon Sanderson has shown that the intensely contagious
products of pus and serum found in these diseases always contain
swarms of bacteria, and may thus be distinguished from ordinary
healthy pus, which is but slightly contagious.
One of the immense practical benefits already derived from the
germ theory is the antiseptic treatment of wounds, which was intro
duced a few years ago by the eminent surgeon Sir Joseph Lister, as
a means of guarding against the septic diseases, and was expressly
stated by him to be founded on M. Pasteur’s doctrine concerning
putrefaction. As Pasteur had shown that putrefaction is caused
by bacteria, the antiseptic treatment aims at preventing the hurtful
influence of these little organisms on a wound. For this purpose,
the wound is covered with several folds of gauze steeped in a solu
tion of carbolic acid, whose fumes either kill the bacteria or at least
prevent them from decomposing the discharges, and thus giving
rise to the septic poison. This method, along with other pre
cautions, has now been introduced in the large hospitals here and
abroad, with such admirable results in preventing pyaemia, hospital
gangrene, and other septic affections, that Dr. Sanderson lately
observed, in alluding to the experience of German surgeons : “We
can no longer wonder that it is common to hear the discovery of
Lister spoken of in Germany as the greatest improvement in the
art of medicine which has taken place in modern times.”
There is still another disease of the utmost gravity, which has
within the last few years apparently been proved to be contagious,
I mean the dreadful malady tuberculosis, called pulmonary con
sumption or phthisis when it occurs, as it usually does, in the
lungs. This is by far the most important and widely destructive
of all diseases, for statistics, it is asserted, show that one-seventh
of the whole population, and as much as one-third of the adult
population who die in the prime of life are carried off by it.
Until recently, tuberculosis was regarded as a disease which arises
chiefly from debility or hereditary predisposition, and as not at all
contagious ; but in 1864, Dr. Villemin, of Paris, published the
extremely important and startling discovery that it can be com
municated to the lower animals by inoculating them with tubercular
products. The truth of his conclusions was in some respects
questioned at the time, but they have since been fully confirmed.
Dr. Koch, of Berlin, the high authority already referred to, observes
that recent researches “ have established the communicability of
tuberculosis beyond all doubt, and in future a place must be assigned
�TIIE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIONS DISEASES.
45
to it among the infectious diseases.” Mr. John Simon says : “ The
broad results of modern discovery in regard to ordinary tubercular
disease tend to represent it as a chronic locally-originated zymotic
process, which, starting under certain conditions in one first spot
of the (predisposed) animal body, advances by successive steps in
definite anatomical lines to infect the entire system ; a process,
which by means of its characteristic products is inoculable from
piri to pirt, and from subject to subject.” It was presumed that
a microscopic parasite must exist in tuberculosis as in other com
municable diseases, and after a long, fruitless search by various
inquirers, it was at last discovered by Dr. Koch, whose observations
on the subject are contained in a most important paper read before
the Physiological Society at Berlin in 1882. The little parasite as
described by him is of a rod-like shape, and has hence been called
the bacillus tuberculosis. Dr. Koch says that he has found this
parasite to be constantly present in the tubercular products of
men and animals, and that moreover, by obtaining it in a pure
state with the aid of successive cultures, and then testing it by
inoculation, he has proved it to be the true cause of the disease.
(Debility and hereditary tendency have doubtless, he remarks, a most
powerful effect in the production of tuberculosis, but they act only as
predisposing influences, while the real essential cause is the bacillus.
At a meeting of the Pathological Society of London in December
last, Dr. Dawson Williams, who had repeated some experiments
on the subject at the request of Dr. Wilson Fox and of Dr. Burdon
Sanderson, observed that “ the evidence in favour of the specific
nature of tubercle was now, he thought, very strong, and it was
strong also in favour of the view that the bacillus tuberculosis was
a necessary part of the tubercular process ; further, the recently
published experiments of Baumgarten and Arndt seemed to pi-ove
jthat the lesions of tuberculosis depended directly on the growth of
the bacillus, and were in fact produced by it.”
With regard to the question whether the tubercle bacilli belong
to the class of genuine or of occasional parasites, Dr. Koch holds
that they are “ not occasional, but genuine parasites, and can pro
ceed only from the animal organism,” a fact which, he says, would
greatly facilitate their destruction. He grounds his opinion upon
the circumstance that in his cultures the bacilli would only grow
lit a temperature between 30° and 40° centigrade (that is, between
86° and 104° Fahrenheit), and such a temperature cannot be ob
tained continuously in our climates except in the animal body. He
holds, moreover, that they may be introduced into the system by
inhalation as well as by inoculation, and thinks it probable that
they often enter in the former way, judging from the fact that
phthisis usually commences in the lungs. The principal source
from which the bacilli are derived is, in his opinion, the expectora
tions of phthisical patients, which are known to be capable of
transmitting the disease to the lower animals by inoculation, and
whose particles, when dried, may be wafted about by the air.
�46
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
Another source, according to him, is the milk and flesh of cows
and other animals affected with tuberculosis. Dr. Koch believes
that a knowledge of these facts will be of the greatest benefit in
the prevention of consumptive disease. “In future,” he says, “in
the war against this frightful scourge of the human race, we shall
have to do no longer with an undefined something, but with an
intelligible parasite, whose life’s conditions are for the most part
known, and can be yet more fully investigated.” Efforts to destroy
the parasite should, in his view, be combined with the no less im
portant measures needed for enabling the human constitution to
resist its attacks. Strong people, who live a healthy life and are
much in the open air, never, or very rarely, get consumption, but
only the weakly and delicate, who live and work indoors, or those
hereditarily predisposed ; and if a strenuous endeavour were made
to raise greatly tne physical powers and bodily development of
the community, and at the same time, as Dr. Koch recommends,
if the expectorations of the phthisical were disinfected, and the
milk and flesh of tubercular animals forbidden to be sold, this
fearful disease could, he believes, to an immense extent, be pre
vented and rooted out from among us. Many high authorities,
however, differ widely from Dr. Koch in regard to several of these
views, and especially on the question whether or not phthisis is
often due to contagion. Thus Dr. Andrew, in one of his Lumleian
lectures on “ The ^Etiology of Phthisis ” (published in the Lancet
of May 10th, 1884), holds that the disease is undoubtedly trans
missible by inoculation to the lower animals, and also that its true
cause is the bacillus, while the other reputed causes act only as
predisposing influences ; but he infers, from a study of clinical
facts and from common medical experience as to the origin of
consumption, that the bacillus is an occasional, not a genuine
parasite, and in the great majority of cases comes in from the
outer world instead of being derived by transmission from another
person or animal. Hence he believes that contagion, though pos
sible, very rarely occurs in practice, and has very little really to
do with the production of phthisis. He contends that “ although
phthisis may be undoubtedly produced in many ways experi
mentally in animals, and also probably in man, there is not suf
ficient evidence to prove that its prevalence is materially affected
by direct contagion.” After summing up his views on the subject
he says : “ From these I may be allowed to make one short prac
tical deduction—namely, that the prevention of phthisis, like that
of ague, is to be attained by sanitary works, especially by improved
ventilation and drainage, and not by isolation.” How different
would human life be, if so afflicting and widely spread a malady
could be effectually controlled and prevented by a clear knowledge
of its cause 1 *
* Tlie treatment which holds out most hope of a cure in this very fatal disease
would seem to be a residence for a time in certain high or alpine districts, where
there is an immunity from consumption, or, in other words, where tuberculosis
�THE EXTINCTION OK INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
47
The germ theory not only explains, as I have endeavoured above
to describe, the existing facts of infection, but also enables us to
understand how the infectious disorders may probably at first have
arisen in past ages. If infectious diseases are always accompanied
never occurs either among the people who live there or in the lower animals. That
there are such districts appears to be fully established, and is a most remarkable and
important, fact. Sir Thomas Watson, in his “ Lectures on the Principle ■ and Practice
of Medicine ” (5th ed., 1871), quotes a passage from the Westminster Review, m which
it is st ted that Dr. Schleissner, who was sent srnne years ago by the Danish Govern
ment to investigate the sanitary condition of Iceland, ascertained that in Iceland
•‘scrofula and consumption are unknown.” “This statement,” says Sir Thomas
Watson, “ the accuracy of which had been called in question, has very recently been
confirmed by unimpeachable te.-timonv, zealously collected and made public by Dr.
Leared. In a letter written by him upon the subject, Dr. Ilja'teln, a distinguished
physician resi ing at Reykjavik, dec ares that, during a p *riod of fifteen years, he has
had more than thirty thousand patients, and has made nume ous autopsies, yet not a
single case of tubercle of the lungs or of indigenous consumption has he met with.
He adds the corroborative testimony of Dr. Skaptason, the oldest and most expe
rienced physician in Iceland, who says: ‘During my thirty-two years’practice in
this country, I have nor, seen a single case of phthisis tuberculosa. I have seen a great
many cases of other diseases of the lungs, but phthisis tuberculosa never. In all the
autopsies I have made, I have never observed the least trace of tubercle in the
lnogs.’” A similar immunity from consumption, according to several observers, is
found in certain elevated regions anions high mountain ranges, such as the Swiss
Alps; and it is asserted ihat in districts enjoying this immunity, not only are the
inhabitants free from tuberculosis, but the disease is often arrested, and even radi
cally cured in patients who resort thither for treatment. Professor G. See, in his
latel published work on “ Bacillary Ph hisis ” (“ La Phtisie Bacilloire,” Paris, 1884),
ascribes the beneficial effects of the air of lofty moon'ains to the fact that it kills
or checks the increase of the bacillus, which he regards as the true cause of con
sumption. * Like many other plants, the bacillus cannot live in an Alpine climate,
M. See holds ‘ that phthisis is uniform in its > attire, that it is parasitic, and that the
trea'ment by climate should have for its object either to destroy the bacillus oi u,
prevent the parasite from developing itself,” and multiplying in the tissues. He says
that, as sh wn by the researches of M. Pasteur and others, “ at a height above 800
mfetres (about 2,600 feet) micmphytic life is compromised. But the most formal
proofs of the incompatibility of these altitudes with the life of the mi"rone have
been furnished by Miguel and Freudenstein; at 1,800 metres (about. 5,900 feet), no
more pa'asites. How or why the microbe-- disappear matters, little ; it is a fact, and
it is to this incorruptible quality of the atmosphere that high climates owe their
anti-bacillary or prophylactic power.” Whether it be from the cold or the large
quantity of ozone contained in the air, “the tubercular microbe is unable to live
in these conditions,” and hence M. See concludes that “ mountain climates
must now enter into the warfare of man against the microphytes which en
danger our race.” The most surprising statements, on this subject, however,
are those lately made by Dr. Gauster, chief physician to the State Railways
Administration in Vienna, in a series of articles commencing April 8th, 1884, in
the Wiener Medizinische Zeitung, on “the Influence of a High Climate on Tuber
culosis.” Dr. Gauster affirms that among the Alps thereare districts, having a pecu
liar soil and a height not below 730 metres (about 2,40a feet), which confer a com
plete immun'ty from con-umption, the disease never occurring there either in men
or animals ; while in other districts, thoush at a much greater height, there is no
such immunity. “Immunity from tuberculosis” he says, “is only to be found in
regions where, at a height of more than 730 metres, the soil is composed of the oldest
rocks, as granite, gneiss, and crystalline schist formations, and the quantity of ozone
in the air is constantly high.” He says that the existence of immunity districts, and
their wonderfully beneficial effects on imported cases of consumption, especially in
the early stages of th- disease, have for many years been known. An experience of
fifteen years has convinced Dr. Gauster himself that, in patients who reside for some
months in these districts, changes occur in the diseased lungs by which the morbid
products are gradually eliminated from the body. “ The results of these processes,’
he says, “are, in all the slighter cases, and in most ca-es of medium degree, a cure ;
but in the majority of advanced cases, a hasrening of the fatal issue.” He maintains,
therefore, that “tuberculosis in certain stages is curable in the high climate.” Dr.
Gauster’s assertions are so startling, and so opposed to ordinary medical experience
�48
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
by parasitic organisms, which are either their producers or their
carriers, it is evident that the question how the diseases arose
depends mainly on tbe question as to the origin of the little parasites.
Whence are these little organisms derived, and how did they be
come parasitic on the animal body ? Their origin must obviously
have taken place in one of two ways. Either they arose by what
is called “ spontaneous generation ” from lifeless matter, or else
they descended in the usual way from other living organisms.
Now the former mode of origin is entirely denied by M. Pasteur,
Professor Tyndall, Dr. Burdon Sanderson, and others, who con
tend, not that spontaneous generation never occurs in nature, bi.t
that it never occurs in this class of living beings. Thus M. Pasteur
says, in a lecture delivered before the Chemical Society of Paris
in 1861 : “ You will observe I do not pretend to show that spon
taneous generation never exists. In subjects of this kind one
cannot prove a negative. But I do pretend to demonstrate
rigorously that in all the experiments where the existence of
spontaneous generation has been believed to be recognised among
those beings of the lowest class, to which the controversy is now-a*
days confined, the observer has been the victim of illusions or
causes of error which he has not perceived or has not known how
to avoid.” In a report made in 1871 on the origin and distribu
tion of microzymes (bacteria), Dr. Burdon Sanderson observes :
“I shall be able to prove in the most decisive manner that, as
regards the animal tissues and liquids, and the liquids which will
be used as tests for the presence of microzyme germs, no spon
taneous evolution of any organic form ever takes place ; but it
will be quite unnecessary either to deny or assert its possibility
under other and different circumstances.” Dr. William Roberts
regards the doctrine of spontaneous generation or “ abiogenesis ” as
in itself a perfectly legitimate supposition, but holds that the bac
teria, humble though they be, are far too highly organised for such
a mode of origin, which, moreover, could not be expected to occur
among plants subsisting on the products of putrefaction. “ As
suming,” he says, “ that the occurrence of abiogenesis at some
time in the past history of the globe is a necessary postulate in
science, I see nothing unscientific—looking to the law of continuity
in the operations of nature—in the supposition that it may be
occurring at the present day somewhere or other on the earth’s
surface, but certainly not in decomposing liquids.”
So far as we have reason to believe, therefore, the bacteria are
never generated spontaneously or de novo, but always descend,
like the higher plants and animals, from other living beings. _ We
have seen, however, that what is called £l spontaneous generation,”
as to the curability of consump ion, that they would need ample corroborative
evidence for their support; and M. See states that the medical college of Vienna
has appointed a commission to inquire into the subject. In any case, however, it
seems natural to expect that the influences which entirely prevent consumption
among the natives of certain districts must have a powerful effect in checking the
progress of the disease when brought into these localities.
�TIIE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
49
“a de novo origin,” not unfrequently takes place in some infec
tious diseases, and this shows that these expressions are ambiguous,
and are used in a different sense when applied to a minute living
organism and when applied to an infectious disease. In the former
case they mean that the organism is evolved out of lifeless matter ;
but when an infectious disease is said to be generated spon
taneously, or de novo, the meaning is that it does not arise by in
fection from another disease like itself—that it is due to some other
cause than infection. As regards the little organisms found in
the disease, the phrase means, not that they arose from lifeless
matter, but that they came in from the outer world, and were not
derived by transmission from one animal to another. A spon
taneous origin of this kind is not uncommon at present among
some infectious disorders, and must at one time have occurred in
all, for, as Dr. Murchison observes, “ in the first sufferer from a
contagious disease its origin must have been de novo.” In in
quiring into the origin of the contagia and of contagious diseases,
it is their spontaneous or de novo origin, in this sense of the terms,
that has to be considered. The view now generally entertained
on this subject by high authorities is that all the different contagia
have probably descended, at periods more or less remote, from the
bacteria, and have been gradually brought to their present type,
in the lapse of ages, by means of variation, inheritance, natural
selection, and the other laws of evolution so admirably explained
by Mr. Darwin in his account of the origin of species. The
bacteria are well known to be eminently modifiable, and may
undergo surprising changes in form and properties from their
physical environment, or by passing from one species of animal
into another. “ If contagia are organisms.” says Dr. William
Roberts, “ they must necessarily have the fundamental ten
dencies and attributes of all organised beings. Among the most
important of these attributes is the capacity for ‘ variation ’ or
‘ sporting.’ ” In like manner Dr. Wilks observes, in his Address
as President of the Pathological Section at the International
Medical Congress in 1881, that, if specific diseases be due to a
living contagium, “it must be subject to the same laws as other
organic matter ; and if the doctrine of evolution be true, it
must have numerous relations with families of its own kind, and
perhaps with others which are now obsolete.” Some of the con
tagia, such as those of small-pox and scarlet fever, are probably
derived from variations in the bacteria which took place only in
remote ages, so that now-a-days the diseases are never found to
arise spontaneously or de novo. Others, as those of erys’pelas and
pyaemia, are apparently due to variations occurring more or less
frequently at the present day, and hence a de novo origin is common
in these diseases ; while in some other affections, such as relapsing
fever, diphtheria, and (if Dr. Murchison’s view be correct) even
typhoid fever, the variations may perhaps occur at rare intervals,
and under unknown or obscure conditions, so that, as many believe,
or
�50
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEAS15.
these diseases may now and then arise de novo. It would follow
from this that the first class of little parasites might be totally
extirpated, and the last confined within narrow limits; and we
have seen how greatly Lister’s method has contributed to prevent
the entrance into the body and fatal effects of the minute or
ganisms that give rise to septic diseases.
Having examined the questions whether infectious diseases can
arise spontaneously, and whether the germ theory is the true ex
planation of the facts of infection, we now come to the practical
inquiry as to the means best adapted for preventing and eradi
cating these diseases. The immense importance of this subject
will be seen if we consider the fearful amount of death and
suffering which infectious disorders are causing year after year in
>ur midst. Mr. Simon, whose invaluable Reports as Medical Officer
of the Privy Council and Local Government Board, and therefore
at the head of the sanitary service, have done so much for the pre
vention of disease in England, says : “ Looking at the ravages
which are every day suffered from familiar diseases of the zymotic
class, such as typhoid fever, and typhus, and small-pox, and
scarlatina, and measles, and hooping-cough ; and adding to these
the less constant, but occasionally terrible, destructiveness of
diphtheria and of cholera ; adding further the consequences of
venereal diseases ; adding again those serious traumatic infections
which make the chief common danger of surgical operations and
injuries • everyone can see that the field of zymotic pathology is of
enormous extent and incalculable importance.” The number of
deaths produced by infectious diseases appears from the Reports
of the Registrar-General, which, since 1838, give a tabular state
ment of the causes of all the deaths occurring throughout the
country. Thus if we take the five years from 1876 to 1880 (the
last year for which the annual report has as yet been published) we
find that during the whole period there were in England and Wales
9,726 deaths from small-pox ; 48,294 deaths from measlesj 85,208
from scarlet fever; 66,112 from hooping-cough ; 4,458 from
typhus ; 34,651 from typhoid or enteric fever ; and 15,243 from
diphtheria. This would give as a yearly average of the deaths
from each of these seven diseases, about 2,000 deaths annually
from small-pox ; from measles, 9,500 ; from scarlet fever 17,000 ;
from hooping-cough, 13,000 ; from typhus, 1,000 ; from typhoid
fever, 7,000 ; and from diphtheria, 3,000 annual deaths. In addi
tion to the foregoing there were from the other contagious dis
orders included in the Registrar-General’s reports, 10,268 deaths
from erysipelas ; from puerperal fever, 7,728 ; from syphilis,
10,615 ; from hydrophobia, 246 ; and from glanders, 24 deaths.
That is to say, about 2,000 persons died on an average each year
from erysipelas ; 1,500 from puerperal fever ; 2,000 from syphilis ;
50 from hydrophobia ; and 5 from glanders. Taking the eleven
years from 1870 to 1880, it will be seen that the aggregate number
of deaths from the seven infectious fevers mentioned above,
�TIIE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
51
amounted to 639,289, or about 58,000 annually, which is rather
more than one-ninth of the total number of deaths from all causes
during the same period. Hooping-cough, measles, and scarletiever, though liable to occur at all ages, are mainly diseases of
&i fancy and childhood—hooping-cough, according to the eminent
authority on vital statistics, the late Dr. William Farr, being most
fatal in the first, measles in the second, and. scarlet-fever in the
third and fourth years. Diphtheria also is most common in
children, for one-half of those who die of it are under five years,
while in scarlet-fever two-thirds of the deaths are below that age.
Typhus and typhoid fever, on the other hand, are chiefly destruc
tive to adults. In Ireland, where typhus is far more prevalent
than in this country, no fewer than 222,029 persons, in the period
from 1841 to 1851, died of typhus and typhoid fever.
The number of cases or attacks is not accurately known, for
as yet, unfortunately, no provision has been made for registering
all cases of infectious disease ; but we can form some idea of their
amount by considering the average mortality of each disease, that
is, the proportion of deaths that usually occur in a given number
of cases. Small-pox, that hideous and disfiguring malady, is the
most fatal of the contagious fevers, the deaths being estimated by
Mr. Marson at about one-third, and by Dr. Seaton at rarely less
than 20 per cent., and often 30 and 40 per cent, of the attacks.
When the disease occurs in a person who has been vaccinated, it is
Usually, though not always, of a modified or milder form, a,nd Dr.
Seaton observes that the mortality of small-pox after vaccination
“ is rarely known to exceed 7 per cent., and is more frequently 3,
4 and 5 per cent.” In typhus and typhoid fever, according to Dr.
jBuchanan and Dr. Murchison, about one patient in ten dies, if all
®ges are taken together, but in adults as many as one in five.
Diphtheria (a contagious sore-throat deriving its name from a
whitish sloughing membrane or skin that forms in the throat and
©ften spreads to the windpipe) is fatal to one in seven, or even,
according to Dr. Aitken, to one third of those attacked by it ;
ftvhile the mortality of scarlet fever is the most variable of
all, ranging from ®ne in twenty or thirty in mild epidemics to one
in five or six in severe ones, and on an average it is reckoned at
about one in twelve. If we take these figures, we may perhaps
infer that there occur in England and Wales on an average of years
about 12,000 or 15,000 cases annually of small-pox ; 10,000 of
typhus ; 70,000 of typhoid or enteric fever ; 15,000 of diphtheria ;
tnd 200,000 cases of scarlet fever. Dr. Murchison, judging by the
deaths from scarlet fever, estimates that considerably less than
half the children born contract that disease (in 1880 the total
number of births registered was 881,643). Hooping-cough and
measles, though the rate of mortality in them is comparatively low,
are so extremely contagious that few children escape them, and
Bence more than half-a-million cases of hooping-cough, and as many
of measles, must annually occur on an average in this country.
D 2
�52
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
In spite of the dreadful ravages committed by infectious
diseases, there are no maladies for whose prevention so little has
yet been done. Indeed, till very recently, they were regarded
almost as necessary and unavoidable evils, and except in the case
of vaccination for small-pox and in some other instances, few
energetic steps were taken to combat any of the infections current
among us, or to prevent their diffusion. “ As to contagions already
current in the country,” says Mr. Simon in his Report to the Privy
Council for 1865, “ practically any diseased person scatters his in
fection broadcast almost where he will—typhus or scarlatina,
typhoid or small-pox, or diphtheria.” In another impressive pas
sage in his Report to the Local Government Board for 1874, Mr.
Simon says: “ Among the causes which injuriously affect the
Public Health of England, considered as a total, certain operate
only on particular districts ; while others, though no doubt in
widely different degrees, appear to be of general, perhaps nearly
universal operation. Foremost in the latter class, and constituting
therefore in my opinion objects which claim earliest attention in
the sanitary government of England, two gigantic evils stand con
spicuous first, the omission (whether through neglect or through
want of skill) to make due removal of ref use-matters, solid and liquid,
from inhabited places ; and secondly, the license which is permitted
to cases of dangerous infectious disease to scatter abroad the seeds of
their infection.” Much has been done of late years, especially in large
towns, for the better removal of refuse matters by improvements
in the sewerage and in the water supply, and the next great
sanitary effort will probably be for the prevention and extinction
of infectious diseases. There are many sanitary reforms which
can be carried out by the authorities with little aid, except of a
pecuniary kind, from the public ; but the abolition of infectious
disease can only be accomplished by the cordial and intelligent co
operation of the whole community ; and hence the urgent need for
an open discussion of the subject, so that all may understand it
and agree as to the means that should be adopted for the pur
pose.
As the contagious fevers have no other source than contagion,
the requirements or indications for their prevention can be readily
understood, and the only difficulty is to know by what practical
and feasible measures these requirements can best be fulfilled. We
have already seen that a contagious fever can be communicated in
three ways ; either by the patient himself, both during his illness
and convalescence, or by the persons or objects which have become
contaminated by being in his neighbourhood. The patient com
municates infection by means of little particles, invisible to the
naked eye, which are exhaled in vast quantities from his body, and
which according to the modern view are excessively minute living
organisms, or microbes ; the tainted objects act simply as carriers of
these particles ; while the tainted or suspected persons may either
act as carriers, or may, for aught we know, be really themselves
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
53
patients, and already suffering from the disease in its latent or
incubative stage. For the purpose of prevention, therefore, all
that is needed is that no one who has not previously had the disease
should come near any patient or suspected person till the period of
danger is past, and that all tainted objects should be thoroughly
disinfected ; in other words, isolation and disinfection are the
essential requisites for the prevention of the infectious fevers.
“ The isolation of healthy persons from those affected with the
disease, and from those who have intercourse with such patients,”
says Dr. Aitken, in speaking of scarlet fever, “ is essential, and is
the only rule that promises any good results.” Mr. Simon also,
speaking of scarlet fever, observes that “ at present we have not
any other known power of dealing preventively with the disease
than such as consists in intercepting all contagious communication
between the infected and the non-infected parts of the population.
Thoroughly to isolate the sick from intercourse with susceptible
persons, and thoroughly to trap and exterminate all contagium
which the bodies of the sick evolve, are the preventive feats which
have to be accomplished.” A complete system of prevention for
the infectious fevers would thus include, in the first place, the
isolation of the patients during their illness and convalescence ;
secondly, the isolation (often called quarantine') of suspected
persons till the period of incubation is over, and it can be seen
whether or not they are infected with the disease ; and thirdly,
the disinfection of clothing, bedding, furniture, and other con
taminated articles. A fourth indispensable requisite is the imme
diate notification to the sanitary authorities of every case that
occurs, so that means may be taken as speedily as possible to aid
the sufferers in their difficulties, and to prevent the extension of
the disease.
These requirements for limiting the spread of infection are in
cluded by Sir James Simpson—who was the first, in his “ Proposal
to Stamp out Small-pox and other Contagious Diseases ” (1868), to
urge the adoption of measures, not merely for the partial preven
tion, but for the complete and speedy extinction of the contagious
fevers by a great social effort—in the following rules, which he calls
the “ Regulations for Stamping Out.” His remarks have special
reference to small-pox, but similar measures, as he afterwards
states, are applicable, and will, he believes, sooner or later be
adopted for the prevention and extinction of all the infectious fevers.
The regulations which he proposes are:—“ 1. The earliest pos
sible notification of the disease after it has once broken out upon
any individual or individuals. 2. The seclusion at home or in
hospital of those affected during the whole progress of th$ disease,
as well as during the convalescence from it, or until all power of
infecting others is past. 3. The surrounding of the sick with
nurses and attendants who are themselves non-conductors, or in
capable of being affected, inasmuch as they are known to be pro
tected against the disease by having already passed through cow
�54
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
pox or small-pox. 4. The due purification, during and after the
disease, by water, chlorine, carbolic acid, sulphurous acid, etc., of
the rooms, beds, clothes, etc., used by the sick and their attendants,
and the disinfection of their own persons.”
The late president of the College of Physicians, Sir Thomas
Watson, in his article in the Nineteenth Century on “ The Abolition
of Zymotic Disease” (1877) earnestly urges the same views, and
thus enumerates the measures which he regards as necessary for
prevention : 'l To this end,” He says, “ the requisites are, first, the
unfailing and immediate notification to the proper authorities of
the occurrence of every case. Second, the instant isolation of the
sick person. Third, the thorough disinfection of his body, clothes,
furniture, and place of isolation. Fourth, vigilant and effectual
measures to prevent the importation of his disease from abroad,
and to strangle it should it by mischance return.”
It will be observed that the above proposals omit one of the four
measures which have been already adverted to as needed to consti
tute a complete system of prevention against the infectious fevers,
namely, isolation of the patients, isolation of suspected persons,
disinfection, and notification. The measure omitted is the isolation
of suspected persons, or quarantine, as it is often called, a word
used to signify the seclusion of persons apparently healthy, but
who have had intercourse with patients, till the period of incubation
of the disease is past, and it can be known whether or not they are
infected. This has always been felt to be the most vexatious and
harassing of the preventive regulations, and therefore it may
be dispensed with wherever there is reason to believe, either that
the other means would without it be found sufficient, or that society
would not willingly consent to its adoption. Still, such a measu ’•e
is often of the utmost value, and is, indeed, indispensable to success
when the disease to be combated is of a particularly infectious cf
very fatal nature, so that the strongest means are required to sup
press it. All the fresh cases, we must bear in mind, arise among
the persons who have been exposed to contagion, and in this way,
by isolating the latter for a few days, we obtain an immense puwff
of preventing the disease. If, on the other hand, the suspected
persons are left at large, those of them who are incubating the dis
ease will sicken in the midst of other healthy people, to whom they
may probably communicate infection before there is time to isolate
them. For these reasons the isolation of suspected individuals, or
quarantine, has been very frequently resorted to, though hitherto
almost solely as a means of defence against foreign infectious dis
eases, such as the plague, yellow fever, and cholera. It is by strict
quarantine regulations, as well as improvements in hygiene, that the
plague has been expelled from Europe, and that New York and some
other American seaports have been long preserved from the inroads of
yellow fever ; and our exemption of late years and until recently from
that fearful scourge, Asiatic cholera, is largely owing to the system of
quarantine which has been established against it in the Red Sea and
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
55
on the frontiers of Russia, the routes by which cholera entered in
its former visits. The isolation of persons who have been exposed
to contagion is commonly effected in one of two ways ; either by
their seclusion in separate buildings, for a number of days not
exceeding the usual period of incubation of the disease ; or else by
surrounding the infected places with what is called a sanitary
cordon, or a line which no one is allowed to pass without permission
of the authorities, and by which the sick and those having inter
course with them are kept apart from the rest of the community.
In several towns in the north of England the local authorities have
very recently applied for and received from Parliament powers to
erect shelter-houses, in which the healthy members of infected
families can be received while their homes are being disinfected,
and also to impose certain restrictions on the residents in houses in
which infectious disease has broken out; compensation being given
for any loss that may be sustained by compliance with the sanitary
regulations.
But by far the most important and essential of the preventive
measures is the isolation of the patients themselves, and the main
difficulty in the whole subject is to know in what manner this can
best be effected. Sir James Simpson, as we have seen, proposes
that the patient should be secluded “ at home or in hospital ;” but
he, and all others who have carefully considered the facts, point out
the utter impossibility of effectually isolating a contagious fever in
the homes of the poor, on account of the overcrowding and the
want of a separate room or of any adequate means for preventing
frequent intercourse between the patient and his friends both during
his illness and his convalescence. Mr. Simon says, with reference
to the overcrowding of labourers’ cottages : “ Again and again, in
phrases so uniform that they seem stereotyped, reporters on the
spread of epidemic disease in rural districts have insisted on the
extreme importance of that overcrowding as an influence which
renders it a quite hopeless task to attempt the limiting of any in
fection which is introduced.” Dr. Aitken observes also, in treating
of scailet fever: “When, however, we look abroad at the actual
condition of the people among whom the disease works its ravages,
we see at once that, with regard to very many of them, and espe
cially with regard to the very poor in towns, isolation and disinfec
tion are no more than idle words.” To avoid the risk of transmit
ting the disease, those who have any intercourse with the patient
should as rarely as possible, and only after disinfection, come in
contact with healthy susceptible persons ; but how totally this is
disregarded in numberless instances may be gathered from the fol
lowing account, quoted in Dr. Aitken’s work from a communication
by Professor Bell to the Lancet, of a case of severe scarlet fever
which was seen in a small crowded room. Upon inquiry Dr. Bell
found the following facts : “ The father had charge of an extensive
society’s bread-shop ; the mother was a washerwoman, taking
clothes to her home to wash ; the eldest girl attended, throughout
�56
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIGUS DISEASES.
the day, the children of a lady’s family, and came home to sleep at
night; the other children attended, some an infant-school, some a
large mixed school, where hundreds of other children met. The
youngest played with young children in a house on the other side of
the passage.” How can we hope, in such circumstances, to prevent
the spread of a dangerous infectious disease ?
Even in the houses of the rich, where all the advantages of a
separate room and trained nurse, with disinfectants and other neces
sary appliances, can be had, the isolation of an infectious fever is
by no means easy, and very frequently fails in spite of the most
conscientious efforts. There is a wide difference in the infectious
ness of different diseases, and some of them are much harder to
isolate than others. Thus Dr. J ones Glee observes, in his article on
Scarlet Fever in “ Reynolds’ System of Medicine,” “ In degree of
contagiousness scarlet fever takes its place between measles and
hooping-cough above, and typhus fever below, diphtheria being
very far below.” Measles and hooping-cough are so extremely con
tagious, and so difficult to isolate, that it seems needless for the
present to think of their extinction, and we should rather at first
confine our efforts to the other infectious diseases. Of these, small
pox and typhus are much less common in the rich than the poor ;
indeed, typhus, though very dangerous, and often fatal, to the
medical men and nurses who attend it, is usually found only among
the poorest classes of society ; while enteric or typhoid fever, as
previously remarked, is propagated mainly by the bowel discharges
of the sick, and needs, as its essential preventive, the thorough dis
infection or destruction of these discharges immediately on their
issue from the body. The diseases which most frequently require
to be isolated in the houses of the rich, therefore, if we omit
measles and hooping-cough, are scarlet fever and the much rarer
affection, diphtheria ; and to show how little reliance can be placed
on the usual preventive measures in so highly infectious a disease as
scarlet fever, I may again quote from Dr. Aitken’s work the fol
lowing remarks by Dr. Davies, the medical officer of health for
Bristol. In writing of an epidemic of scarlet fever at Bristol in
1875, Dr. Davies asks the question : “ Are we doing any good with
our present preventive means ?” and observes : “ I feel certain that
we increase the anxiety of the domestic and social troubles of the
public by our preventive measures ; and I feel doubtful of the
answer to the former question.” “ I have never,” he continues,
“ used disinfectants so extensively as during the present epidemic ;
and yet our failure is complete. The doubts I have expressed do
not in any way extend to typhus and enteric fever, small-pox, and
Asiatic cholera.” From the remarkable tenacity of the virus of
scarlet fever, disinfection is more difficult in this disease than in
measles or typhus, and the power to infect continues longer, lasting
altogether during illness and convalescence for two months or more ;
and it is evident that the long presence of a fever in an ordinary
dwelling-house, full of susceptible persons, not only gives great
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES
57
facilities for contagious intercourse, but must so thoroughly load
the bedding, walls, and furniture with virulent particles as to render
much more difficult the process of disinfection.
The above facts show clearly that the real cause of the enormous
prevalence and fatality of the infectious fevers is that they are
treated az home, where they cannot, in the great majority of cases,
be properly isolated; and hence the best authorities have of late
years come more and more decidedly to the conviction that these
diseases ought not to be treated at home, but in hospitals set apart
for the purpose, and so arranged that each different kind of disease
may be isolated in a separate building or a separate ward. The
hospital treatment of the infectious fevers seems to me one of the
most immense improvements ever introduced in medicine, and the
means which, in combination with others, will lead in time to the
complete and final extinction of all these disorders. In an infec
tious disease the objects of medical treatment are not only to cure
the malady, but also to prevent its extension to other persons ; and
the latter aim can only be secured, in the case of the contagious
fevers, by treating them in hospitals where their extension can be
effectually prevented. A large number of infectious hospitals have
lately been provided by the local authorities in the towns and vil
lages throughout the country, partly by erecting new buildings, and
partly by adapting private houses and cottages for the purpose, at
the earnest instigation of the Local Government Board and their
medical staff. “For a long time past,” says the late Dr. Seaton, in
his report for 1876, “the Board have been strenuously urging on
local authorities the provision of such hospitals.” Another indis
pensable means of prevention consists in hospitals or homes in the
country air where convalescents from the contagious fevers can be
isolated till their power of infecting is past; and a few institutions
of the kind have recently been provided, in great part through the
admirable efforts of Miss Mary Wardell and Mrs. Gladstone,
though hitherto chiefly by voluntary contributions, and not by
public funds.
The immense utility of fever hospitals and convalescent homes
as a means for stamping out zymotic disease, will be seen if we
consider for a moment their advantages, not only to the public,
but also to the infected families and to the patients themselves.
To the public the treatment in hospital affords a complete pro
tection by at once removing the patient, the centre and source of
contagion, from the midst of susceptible people, and placing him
in circumstances where his disease cannot extend. In a wellregulated hospital, where the nurses and other attendants are care
fully chosen as having had the disease, and do not come in contact
with the public outside except on rare occasions and after disin
fection, there is little likelihood that any fresh case should arise ;
and even if it did, it would be promptly isolated, so that the
mischief would spread no further. Thus Dr. Broadbent, the senior
physician of the London Fever Hospital, observed lately, at a
�58
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
drawing-room meeting at Mrs. Gladstone’s, that “ from the moment
when a scarlet-fever patient was in an ambulance or in a con
valescent home, all danger to the public ceased.” In like manner
Dr. Buchanan, the present medical officer of the Local Government
Board, says: “In regard to some infections, notably those of
scarlatina and diphtheria, there are no means at all to be compared
with isolation in hospital for preventing the spread of a limited
number of cases into a formidable epidemic.” “ There are,” he
says again, “ four infectious diseases—small-pox, scarlatina, diph
theria, and continued fever—which more particularly require to be
treated in hospital, when they attack persons who cannot be pro
perly isolated in their own houses and he adds that “ small-pox,
as well as other infections, is capable of being wonderfully limited
by isolation in hospital.” Particular care should be taken in any
outbreak of disease to isolate as quickly and effectually as possible
the first cases; for a fever is in some respects like a fire, which at
first can be readily extinguished ; but afterwards, when it has had
time to spread and gather strength, becomes difficult if not im
possible to control. In a Memorandum issued a few years ago by
the Local Government Board, it is pointed out that the separation
of the sick from the healthy “ is comparatively easy, if means to
attain it are taken early, while cases of the disease are very few;
but any interval of delay allows the cases to multiply, and perhaps
at last to become so numerous that endeavours to isolate them
cannot succeed.” If all the existing cases of an infectious fever,
and especially the first cases, were promptly removed to hospital,
and the convalescents afterwards transferred to suitable homes,
epidemics could be arrested at their origin, and the number of
patients needing isolation would soon be surprisingly reduced.
The only other sources of contagion which would then remaiii to
be dealt with are the persons and objects contaminated by the
patients before their removal to hospital ; and if the suspected
persons were secluded for a few days during the term of incubation,
and the tainted objects thoroughly disinfected, it is not too much
to assert that the disease might in a short space of time be radically
and completely extinguished.
To show how rapidly a contagious fever can be extirpated when
adequate means are employed for the purpose, Sir James Simpson
points to the instructive example afforded by the cattle plaque, a
terrible disease of horned cattle, which has its home in Siberia,
and was imported into England from the Continent in 1865. This
is the most fatal and most highly infectious of all the spreading
disorders of the domestic animals, the mortality being estimated by
Professor Fleming at about 90 or 95 per cent, of the attacks, and
during the two years which elapsed before it was subdued in this
country it destroyed nearly half-a-million of cattle. At first the
disease was allowed to gain ground through division of opinions ;
but when a stringent law for its prevention was passed by Par
liament and put in force, it immediately began to decline, and was
�THE EXTIN Clio., OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
59
soon entirely stamped out. The measures adopted were of such
a nature as to deal effectually with all the sources of contagion,
and consisted in the compulsory slaughter, with compensation, of
the sick and also of the suspected animals, the burial of the diseased
bodies, and the disinfection of tainted objects ; due notification of
every case to the authorities being likewise made compulsory. These
are the means which have repeatedly been employed on the Con
tinent against inroads of the cattle plague, and invariably with
success. “ Whatever be the place into which it penetrates,” says
M. Leon Colin, “ the cattle plague can be arrested, for we have
always the same resource, a resource absolute and radical, for sup
pressing the contagion, by causing to disappear the sick, the animals
which they have contaminated, and the objects which they have
Soiled.” Now, Sir James Simpson holds that small-pox and other
infectious fevers in man might be just as successfully eradicated as
Cattle plague, since we possess in isolation strictly carried out, a
means no less powerful for preventing them. “We could, in my
Opinion,” he says, “ as surely and as swiftly stamp out small-pox
as rinderpest (cattle plague) has been stamped out.” After pro
posing his preventive regulations, he says : “ The measures which
I have suggested would probably, in my opinion, stamp out small
pox in Great Britain within six months or a year, provided they
were carried out as faithfully and universally as the Legislature
can command.” It seems to me that these views are in principle
undeniably true, and that if society would only consent to the
effectual isolation, or, in other words, to the isolation in hospital
of all cases of infectious fever, whether in rich or poor, these
dreadful disorders, which have lasted from time immemorial and
destroyed millions of human lives, could in a very few years be
coni pie telv rooted out and banished from among us.
The objection which has been so often urged against fever hos
pitals, that they separate a patient from his friends and relatives,
Seems to be really an objection not to hospitals merely, but to
^solation itself in any form. Even when the patient is treated at
home he must, if we would prevent infection, be kept entirely
apart from his friends and relatives. In both cases isolation is
equally essential, and is the real difficulty that has to be met and
surmounted before we can hope for success. Doubtless it is a
most painful necessity to have to separate from a beloved relative
-—from a child, or parent, or husband, or wife when they are
stricken down by an infectious fever ; but if the separation is
indispensably needed for the extinction of these dangerous ma
ladies, and for the good of the whole human race, ought we not
Willingly to consent to it ? It appears to me, moreover, that fever
hospitals are in reality an inestimable boon to the family and to
the patient, no less than to society at large. They prevent, in
numberless instances, the spread of disease to other members of a
household, and they save the family from all the troubles and
difficulties attendant on isolation at home, which are particularly
�60
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
harassing at such a time of anxiety and distress. There is another
danger connected with the home treatment of contagious fevers
which should be mentioned, and of which the public is not suf
ficiently aware ; namely, that if a woman who is pregnant or
recently delivered contracts one of these diseases, and especially
scarlet fever, it is almost sure to prove fatal. “ Fever during the
pregnancy,” says Dr. Aitken, “most certainly ends in abortion and
death. If the woman be recently delivered, the disease will be of
the most malignant type and almost always fatal.” “ If scarlet
fever can be prevented,” he says also, “ the number of puerperal
fever cases would be diminished one-half ; and every possible step
ought to be taken to remove the pregnant female alike from the
influence of scarlet fever and from erysipelas.” Besides these
great advantages of hospitals, they enable the patient in very
many cases to have better food, nursing, and other accommodations
than he could find at home, while the richer classes may, if they
please, be treated in private hospitals or in separate wards or
rooms to which admission is obtained by payment. Conveyance
to hospitals, it may also be remarked, can be readily effected by
means of ambulance carriages, provided with a moveable bed,
which is taken into the sick-room and into the ward, so as to
avoid, as far as possible, any risk or inconvenience to the patient.
The benefits which a patient derives from a convalescent home are
obvious, for unless he has access to an institution of the kind, he
cannot for some time after his recovery go anywhere to seek a
change of air, and to recruit his strength without endangering the
lives of others. Indeed, the Public Health Act of 1875 expressly
forbids any person suffering from a dangerous contagious disease
to expose himself “ without proper precautions against spreading
the disorder, in any street, public place, or conveyance,” so that’ it
is difficult to see how a convalescent patient who is still capable
of infecting others, can travel, change his residence, or even leave
the house without infringing the law and rendering himself liable
to a penalty.
A question of the utmost importance is, whether the isolation of
persons suffering from a contagious fever should be made compul
sory and enforced by the State, and both Sir James Simpson and
Sir Thomas Watson plead earnestly in favour of a measure for this
purpose. “ If,” says the former, “ by a law which no one thinks
harsh or severe, lunatics are prevented from destroying the lives of
their fellow-men, why should it be thought harsh or severe that
people affected with small-pox should be prevented from dealing
out destruction and death to all the susceptible with whom they
happen to come into contact ?” The force of this appeal will not
be disputed, and it seems to me that a law making obligatory the
isolation of all cases of infectious fever, whether in rich or poor,
if it had the cordial approval and co-operation of society, would
be incomparably the most effectual means that could be taken for
the prevention of these diseases. Such a law would be no real in
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
61
fringement of liberty, for the principle of liberty, as Mr. Mill
points out, requires only that acts which do not injure others
should be left free. On the contrary, acts which injure others
may rightly be controlled by the State, and surely there are no acts
more highly inj urious to others or more likely to be followed by
disastrous consequences, than to communicate the seeds of a
dangerous infectious disease. To extirpate these maladies, more
over, a most vigilant and united action on the part of the public
and the local authorities is absolutely necessary, and this cannot be
obtained without the aid of the law ; indeed, without stringent
laws to prevent them, the extinction of infectious fevers either in
man or the domestic animals seems an utterly hopeless task.
Hence a large number of enactments have recently been made
by Parliament for the prevention of infectious disease, and one of
them deals expressly with the subject of isolating the patient. A
clause in the Public Health Act of 1875 directs as follows:
“ Where any suitable hospital or place for the reception of the
Sick is provided within the district of a local authority, or within
a convenient distance of such district, any person who is suffering
from any dangerous infectious disorder, and is without proper
lodging or accommodation, or lodged in a room occupied by more
than one family, or is on board any ship or vessel, may, on a
certificate signed by a legally qualified medical practitioner, and
with the consent of the superintending body of such hospital or
place, be removed, by order of any justice, to such hospital or
place "at the c'ost of the local authority ; and any person so suffer
ing, who is lodged in any common lodging-house, may, with the
like consent, and on a like certificate, be so removed by order of
the local authority.” That is to say, the law permits the com
pulsory removal to hospital of any fever patient whom the medical
practitioner may certify to be without proper lodging and accom
modation. But the radical defect and injustice of this enactment
seem to be, that it is a law for the poor only, and not for the rich ;
it permits the removal to hospital, and compulsory isolation, of the
poor, but lays no similar obligation on the rich, although the com
plete isolation of a fever patient is quite as necessary among the
latter, and is in very many cases inadequately carried out. To be
just, the law should enforce isolation equally in all classes • and if
this cannot practically be done in any other way than by treatment
in hospital, it seems in fairness to follow that such treatment
should be impartially enjoined in all. Another defect in the enact
ment, which, as pointed out by Mr. Murdoch in his “ Remarks on
the Necessity for further Suppression of Infectious Disorders,”
has greatly diminished its efficacy, is that it imposes on the medical
practitioner the difficult and unpleasant task of interpreting the
phrase “without proper lodging and accommodation,” and thus
makes him the agent in compuisorily sending patients to hospital.
The only law which, I venture to think, would be both just and
effectual, is one making obligatory the isolation in hospital of all
�62
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
cases of certain specified diseases, whether in ri fh or poor. The
diseases which should be included in the measure, and should
always, unless for some special and urgent reason, be treated in
hospital, are, I think, small-pox, typhus, scarlet fever, diphtheria,
and perhaps also, under certain circumstances, typhoid or enteric
fever ; although the prevention of the last-named disorder requires
rather that the discharges should be thoroughly disinfected, and
that complete security should be given for this being done, than
that the patient himself should be isolated. All cases of the
foreign infectious diseases, such as yellow fever or the dreaded
pestilence, Asiatic cholera, should also, as it seems to me, for the
public safety, be treated in hospital. With regard to measles and
hooping-cough, they are affections of a less dangerous nature, and
moreover they are so extremely prevalent, so highly contagious,
and so difficult to isolate, that it seems better to defer for a time
any attempt to extinguish them by means of legal enactments,
and they might continue, as at present, to be usually treated at
home.
But, besides the isolation of the patients, the other leading
measures of prevention should also, in the opinion of the highest
medical authorities, be made compulsory : namely, the disinfection
of tainted articles of clothing or furniture, the notification of all
cases of infectious disease, and, in certain instances, the isolation of
persons who have been exposed to contagion—or quarantine, as it
is commonly called. It is often thought that quarantine is chiefly
applicable to infected ships, or to a line of frontier between
neighbouring countries ; but one of its most important and
valuable forms is the quarantine of infected houses; for the house
on land is in many respects analogous to the ship at sea. Infection
spreads most readily to persons who are in the same house, and
especially in the same room, with the patient, and seems very
seldom to be propagated directly from one house to another, since
the virulent particles are quickly dispersed and rendered harmless
by mixing with the outer air. Thus Dr. Buchanan says, in speak
ing of infectious hospitals: “ As regards the distance which, on
medical grounds, it is right to secure between adjacent inhabited
houses and an infectious hospital, I know of no evidence as to
what proximity, if any, can be a danger to persons not actually
under the same roof ; but there is abundant evidence to show that
very short distances suffice to prevent direct infection.” This fact
shows the great benefits which may be derived from a quarantine
of infected houses ; for when a case of fever occurs in a dwelling
house, if the patient is removed to hospital, and if the other
members of the household are isolated for a few days either at
home or elsewhere, during the term of incubation and while the
premises are being disinfected, the disorder may very often be pre
vented from spreading any further. These means would, I think,
be specially valuable if applied to the first cases of disease appear
ing in a locality, when every possible care should be taken to
�THE EXTINCTION QF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
63
guard against the sources of contagion, and at once to stamp out the
malady at its commencement. As previously remarked, compul
sory powers have lately been granted by Parliament to the local
authorities in several towns in the north of England enabling them
to order the quarantine of infected houses, which if combined
with the removal of the patient to hospital, seems to me the most
complete and effectual system that could be adopted for rapidly
stamping out zymotic disease.
With regard to the disinfection of houses, furniture, or other
articles, this should always, according to Mr. Simon, be done under
the direction of the sanitary authority, who would ensure its
proper performance, and at the same time relieve the public from
a troublesome and expensive task. It should, he says, “ be made a
legal obligation, that every health authority of the country should
have all disinfectant processes necessary for the protection of the
public health done under direction of a skilled officer, and, as far
as necessary, at a public establishment, and at the public cost.”
The means commonly employed for disinfecting purposes, it may
perhaps here be remarked, are heat, free ventilation, and also
certain chemical substances, such as carbolic acid or chloride of
lime. Of these the surest disinfectant is great heat, whether by
fire or boiling water, or by the hot air of an oven, as it at once kills
the virulent germs. The most generally useful agent, however, is
free ventilation and a copious supply of fresh air, which dilutes
and disperses the poisonous exhalations, so that they have no
longer the power to infect. As observed in a memorandum issued
by the Privy Council: “ The great natural disinfectant is fresh
air abundantly and uninterruptedly supplied.” In disinfecting a
room which has been occupied by a fever patient, the usual plan is
to fill it, all apertures being closed, with chlorine gas, or with the
fumes of burning sulphur, and after it has been thoroughly
fumigated, to throw open doors and windows, and allow the freest
ventilation for several days; then to whitewash the walls and
ceiling, and, at the end of a week, the room may again be safely
inhabited. In Asiatic cholera and typhoid fever the virus is con
tained chiefly in the bowel discharges of the sick, and these should
always be thoroughly disinfected immediately on their issue from
the body. Another precaution, which was introduced by Dr. Budd,
and has lately been recommended by Dr. Cameron as in his opinion
the best of all preventives against cholera, is to flood the drains
and closets frequently with disinfectants during the presence of
the disease in the country, so as to prevent the little germs, c r
microbes, from living and multiplying in the sewage. By careful
disinfection and isolation, we may hope that cholera, like plague
and other scourges, will be effectually combated, and may, in the
end, be entirely overcome.
To enable the sanitary authorities to ensure due isolation and
disinfection in cases of infectious disease, it is evidently necessary
that every such case should be notified or reported to them, and
�64
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
that this should be done as speedily as possible ; for the sooner
preventive means are taken the less time is allowed for the spread
of contagion, and the more easily can the outbreak be arrested.
The prevention of these disorders, it may be observed, has been
immensely facilitated by the new sanitary organization introduced
by the Act of .1872, according to which the whole country has been
divided into districts, governed in matters relating to public health
by sanitary authorities ; each of these bodies having its medical
officer of health, while all of them are under the superintendence
of the Local.Government Board, aided by its medical officer. Mr.
Simon describes “the new sanitary organization of the country”
as consisting of “ the Local Government Board, viewed as a Central
Board. of Health, and the more than fifteen hundred district
authorities which, each with its medical officer of health, locally
administer the health laws.” In the notification of infectious dis
eases, every case should at once be reported to the medical officer
of health for the district. This system of notifying disease has
lately been adopted with excellent results in upwards of thirty
towns, some of them among the largest of the United Kingdom,
and has there been made compulsory by special Acts of Parliament
obtained on the application of the local authorities themselves ;
and Mr. Hastings has more than once introduced into the House of
Commons a Bill for extending the same principle of compulsory
notification to the whole country.
Although the highest authorities agree in thinking that the
notification of infectious diseases is indispensably needed for their
prevention by the State, and should be made compulsory, there is
much difference of opinion in regard to the question, Who is to
notify ? In the infectious fevers, the duty of giving intimation
must be performed either by the occupier of the house where the
disease has broken out or by the medical attendant; and a strong
feeling exists among large numbers of the medical profession that
the legal obligation to notify, and the penalties for neglecting it,
ought not to be laid on them, but on the householder. Thus, in
an important debate on the subject which took place at the annual
meeting of the British Medical Association in 1882, a resolution
was carried to the effect, “ That this meeting earnestly desires
compulsory notification of infectious disease, but it wishes to
express its opinion that the compulsion to notify should be placed
upon the householder as bis duty as a citizen, and not upon the
doctor.” In the course of the discussion, the President, Dr. Alfred
Carpenter, observed that “ There could be no doubt that it was
the duty of the patient, or his legal guardian, to notify the exist
ence of any infectious disease to the local authority.” This seems
to me a truth of the utmost importance, which should be carefully
considered by the public. The real person on whom the duty of
notifying infectious disease naturally rests is, I think, the patieDt
himself, and in some diseases, which do not impair the faculties,
he may be legally called upon to fulfil it. But in the contagious
�The extinction
of infectious diseases.
65
fevers the proper person on whom the obligation should be laid
seems to be the householder, as he is the patient’s natural guardian,
and, moreover, it is he, and not the doctor, who has an early know
ledge of the existence of the disease. The assistance of the medical
taan will doubtless be needed in most cases to diagnose the affection, and he will also usually be the one to fill up the certificate,
■though the householder may afterwards forward it to the sanitary
eathority. But supposing that the householder, after being in
formed of the infectious nature of the disease, refuses to notify it,
from a fear of injuring his business, or other reasons, I cannot but
think that it would then become'the duty of the medical man, and
that he should be legally required, to make the notification himself ;
for he could not justifiably refrain from interfering, and see a
breach of law committed, which might lead to the most deplorable
and even fatal consequences to many persons. The Bill of Mr.
Hastings proposes, I believe, to make the obligation to notify
bhwling on both the householder and the doctor conjointly ; and
this, as it seems to me, would be the true principle, if it were made
clear that the duty really and in the first instance rests on the
householder, and only when he refuses to discharge it, is incumbent
on the medical practitioner.
* There is one of the contagious fevers in which, besides isolation
and disinfection, a third preventive measure of a totally different
nature, and which appears to me of immense value, has been very
extensively used ; I mean vaccination in small-pox. In disinfection
the object is to destroy the germs of a disease after they have left
the. body, while isolation deals with them at their source in the
patient himself ; but vaccination may be described as consisting in
.this, that after the virulence of the germs has been weakened by
pertain processes, such as their passage through a different species
IOf animal, inoculations are made with the weakened or attenuated
Virus, in order to protect the system against the action of the same
virus in its stronger form. It was shown by Dr. Edward Jenner,
in 1798, that inoculations with cow-pox matter have the power of
protecting the constitution against the virus of small-pox—a fact
which the late Mr. Marson, who for forty years had charge of the
■Dondon Small-pox Hospital, regards as “the greatest discovery in
relation to disease ever made by man for the preservation of human
life.” It was also thought probable by Jenner that cow-pox is
nothing else than small-pox modified or mitigated by passing
through the cow ; and Mr. Ceely, and Mr. Badcock afterwards,
Succeeded in producing cow-pox by inoculating heifers wita
matter taken from a small-pox pustule; but as this is an experiment which very frequently fails, doubts still continued to exist,
till in 1881 the truth of their opinion was completely established
by Dr. Voigt, the superintendent of the Vaccine Institute at
Hamburg. By inoculating a calf with small-pox matter he pro
duced cow-pox, the lymph from which, after being further*
weakened by transmission through several calves, has been habiE
�66
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
tually used at Hamburg in vaccination, for the last two years, with
the most satisfactory results. “Vaccinia and variola (cow-pox and
small-pox) are derived originally from the same contagium,” says
Dr. Voigt, “and give to those affected by them an immunity one
against the other.” Again, the eminent discoverer, M. Pasteur, by
a.n in.vabiable series of researches, has lately shown that vaccina
tion in small-pox is by no means a solitary fact, and that the virus
of many other infectious diseases can be weakened or mitigated
in a similar manner, so as to furnish a protective material, or
vaccine, as he terms it, against the diseases. The two methods by
which he has succeeded in diminishing the power of an infectious
virus and converting it into a vaccine are, either by transmitting
it through an animal of a different species, or by allowing an
interval of several weeks to elapse between two successive culture®
of the little organisms or germs that produce the disease, during
which period they are acted on by the oxygen of the air and
gradually lose their virulence. By these means M. Pasteur has
already obtained the vaccines of several infectious disorders, the
most important of which are rabies (hydrophobia) in the dog, and
anthrax, or the splenic fever of cattle. Of the second method for
weakening the power of a virus he says especially,' We may hope
to discover in this way the vaccine of all virulent diseases,” and
he holds that “ we have here a proof that we are in possession of
a general method for preparing virus vaccine based upon the action
of oxygen and the air.”
The close affinity between cow-pox and small-pox, which are
really the same disease in different species, explains why the one
protects from the other, and according to the best authorities the
power of vaccination during childhood, especially when followed
by re-vaccination later in life, to prevent small-pox, or render it
milder if it does occur, is most remarkable. “ One thoroughly
good primary vaccination to start with,” says Dr. Seaton, in his
article on Vaccination in “ Reynolds’ System of Medicine,” “ and
one careful revaccination at puberty, so conducted as to give
evidence that the lymph was absorbed, are all that is necessary for
the complete protection of the population against small-pox.”
The facts which seem to prove most clearly the great efficacy of
vaccination are that, as shown by Jenner, inoculations with small
pox matter (which used formerly to be practised, but were made
illegal in 1840) produce no effect on a person who has had cow
pox ■ that the nurses who attend upon small-pox patients, and are
constantly exposed to the effluvia, very seldom contract the disease
if they have been previously revaccinated, not one of the nurses in
the London Small-pox Hospital having become infected during Mr.
Marson’s long experience ; and that the death-rate from small-pox
has been enormously diminished in every country where vaccina
tion is in general use. “ The present average death-rate from
small-pox,” says Dr. Seaton, “is scarcely, in any European country,
one-tenth part, and in those countries in which vaccination has
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
67
been most carefully carried out it is much less than one-tenth part
•what it -was at the end of last century.” In England and Wales
the total number of deaths from small-pox in 1879 and 1880 were
536 and 648 deaths respectively, which, according to the RegistrarGeneral, are the lowest rates yet recorded. These figures show
how vast has been the reduction in a disease formerly more dreaded
in Europe than even the plague itself. They show, too, the
immense assistance which may be derived from a vaccine in the
final extinction of an infectious disease ; and they inspire the hope
that by careful isolation and disinfection, aided by vaccination,
we may succeed before long in completely stamping out and
abolishing small-pox, which Sir Thomas Watson describes as “ the
most hideous, loathsome, disfiguring, and, hydrophobia excepted,
probably the most fatal also of the various diseases to which the
human body is liable.”
There still remain two classes of infectious disease, on whose
extinction I would like, before concluding, to say a very few words,
namely, first, those derived from the lower animals, the most im
portant of which is hydrophobia ; and secondly, the venereal
affections, and especially syphilis. With regard to the terrible
malady hydrophobia, besides the vaccine lately discovered against
it by M. Pasteur, it has been earnestly urged by Sir Thomas
Watson, in the Nineteenth Century Review, that a means for its
complete extinction could be found in subjecting all dogs to a
quarantine of six or seven months (which might perhaps be done
by muzzling them), as recommended by Mr. Youatt and Sir
James Bardsley, for in this period every case of the disease which
was in process of incubation would show itself, and the animal
might be destroyed. “ By destroying every dog in which the
disease should break out during strict quarantine,” says Sir James
Bardsley, “ not only would the propagation of the malady be
prevented, but the absolute source of the poison would be entirely
Suppressed.”
As regards the venereal affections, their extinction is a subject of
enormous importance, for there are very few diseases which give
rise to such a fearful amount of human misery. The Acts for
their suppression, commonly known as the Contagious Diseases
Acts, which were so deeply unjust to women, have been virtually
annulled by the resolution of the House of Commons, in 1883,
mndemning compulsory examinations, and a better system of preTOntion is most urgently needed. The high authority, M. Mauriac,
holds that of the three venereal affections, gonorrhoea, syphilis,
and simple contagious sore, the first cannot be extinguished, but
that the two others admit of complete extinction, though the last
of them, being a slighter and merely local affection, could be far
more easily eradicated than the formidable malady, syphilis. It
Seems to me that the true object to be aimed at in the prevention
of syphilis by the State, is to deter individuals from spreading the
disease by the fear of being detected and punished. This object
�68
THE EXTINCTION OB’ INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
could, I venture to think, be best attained, in the first place, by
making the communication of syphilis a punishable offence in both
sexes, as. is strongly recommended by Mr. Berkeley Hill, and other
distinguished writers ; and in the second place, by making com
pulsory the notification of every case of syphilis and of simple
contagious sore to the sanitary authority, or in other words to the
medical officer of health for the district; and also, in addition to
these two enactments, by instituting a most careful and searching
inquiry into the origin of every case of syphilis, so as to discover
who has been guilty of spreading it. Syphilis differs from the
contagious fevers m this most important point, that the patient in
a multitude of cases knows perfectly well by whom he or she has
been infected, and therefore the origin of the disease can very
often be traced. All these inquiries, as well as the notifications of
disease to the authorities, should be kept strictly private, so that
no names would ever be divulged except those of individuals who,
knowing themselves to be diseased, assist in the spread of infection.
Whether an individual had acted in ignorance or from culpable
negligence would often appear from the circumstance that his
disease had been notified and he had been warned of its con
tagious nature. With regard to notification, which seems to me in
syphilis, as in all other dangerous infectious disorders, of immense
importance for its prevention, the legal obligation to notify
should, I think, be laid upon the patient himself, and not upon
the medical attendant ; although the latter could voluntarily give
intimation in cases where he desired to do so, and would doubtless
very often perform the duty at the patient’s request. By notifica
tion the amount and distribution of syphilis in the country would
become known, its increase or diminution could be tested, and
the disease would be rescued from the fatal secrecy which, more
than any other cause, promotes its ravages. It appears to me that
these measures would be just to both sexes, and, though some
times attended with very painful disclosures, would be no real
burden on any but those who wilfully or recklessly communicated
disease to other persons ; and they would also, I venture to think,
be found in the end more effectual than the previous Acts in
stamping out syphilis, which has so long been the scourge and
terror of mankind in all parts of the globe.
�ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE; or, Physical,
r
Sexual, and Natural Religion. An Exposition of the
True Cause and only Cure of the Three Primary Social Evils—
Poverty, Prostitution, and Celibacy. By a Doctor of. Medi
cine. London : E. Truelove, 256, High Holborn. Upwards
of 600 pages. Twenty.fifth Edition.
Sixty-first Thousand.
Price 2s. 6d. Stiff Boards; 3s. Cloth Boards—either post free.
Post Office Orders payable at High Holborn.
J
Translations of this Work have been published in the following
languages, and may be had of E. Truelove :—
In French.—Elements de Science Sociale. Paris: Germer BailliEre,
Boulevard St. Germain, 108. Third Edition, 1879.
In German. — Die Grundzuge der Gesellschaftswissenschaft. Berlin :
Elwin Staude.
Sixth Edition, 1880.
In Dutch.—De Elementen der Sociale Wetenschap. Rotterdam: Nijgh
& Van Ditmar. Second Edition, 1877In Italian.—Elementi di Scienza Sociale. Milan: Gaetano Brigola,
Fourth Edition, 1881.
In Portuguese. — Elementos de Sciencia Social. Lisbon: Silva
Junior. 1876.
In Russian.—Haia-ia Copia.ibHon Hayim. Geneva—Bale—Lyons: H.
Georg. 1877.
In Swedish.—Samhallsldrans Grunddrag. Stockholm: AssociationsBoktryckeriet. Second Edition, 1880.
In Hungarian.— A Tarsadalom-Tudomdny Elemei.
Buda-Posth:
S. Zilahy. 1879.
In Danish.—Grundtrcek af Samfundsvldenskaben. Copenhagen. Th.
E. Thomsen, 1879.
In Polish.—Zasady Nauki Spolecznej Geneva. Imprimerie Polonaise,
1880.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
* This is the only book, so far as we know, in which at a cheap price and with
honest and pure intent and purpose, all the questions affecting the sexes, and the
influence of their relations on society, are plainly dealt with. It has now been
issued in French as well as in English, and we bring the French edition to the
notice of our friends of the International Working Men’s Association, and of our
subscribers in France and Belgium, as essentially a poor man’s book.”—Aarfionai
Reformer, edited by Mr. Charles Bradlaugh.
“ The Elements of Social Science is a most remarkable work, written by a man
evidently with great knowledge of pathology and political economy. It will be
greatly liked or disliked, according to the ‘school’ of the reader; but no one can
fail to consider it as one of the most remarkable works of the day, on the subjects
of which it treats. We are told that it has been largely read in London by medical
men.”—Medicat Press and Ciicular, February 23rd, 1870.
“ A very valuable, though rather heterogeneous book . . . This is, we believe,
the only book that has fully, honestly, and in a scientific spirit recognised all the
elements m the problem—How are mankind to triumph over poverty, with its
train of attendant evils ?—and fearlessly endeavoured to find a practical
Solution.”—T/te Pxaminer, January 4th, 1»73.
“In some respects all books of this class are evils: but it would be weakness
and criminal prudery—a prudery as criminal as vice itself—not to say that such a
�book as the one Id question is not only a far lesser evil than the one that ft
combats, but in one sense a book which it is a mercy to issue and courage t®
Dublish.”—Reasoner, edited by Mr. G. J. Holyoake.
“We have never risen from the perusal of any work with a greater satisfaction
than this."—Investigator.
“That book must be read, that subject must be understood, before the
population can be raised from its present degraded, diseased, unnatural, and
immoral state. Wo really know not how to speak sufficiently highly of this
extraordinary work; we can only say, conscientiously and emphatically, it is a
blessing to the human race."—Peoples Paper. By Ernest Jones.
“Though quite out of the province of our journal, we cannot refrain from
stating that this work is unquestionably the most remarkable one, in many
respects, we have ever met with. Thougn we differ toto ccelo from the author in
his views of religion and morality, and hold some of his remedies to tend rather
to a dissolution than a reconstruction of society, yet we are bound to admit the
benevolence and philanthropy of his motives. The scope of the work is nothing
less than the whole field of political economy.”—The British Journal of Homoeopathy,
January, 1860.
“ It is because, after an impartial consideration of this book, we feel satisfied
that the author has no meretricious professional object to subserve, that we are
induced to use its publication as a text for the discussion of a vital and pressing
subject; and because it bears evidences of research, thorough although misapplied,
professional education, some pretensions to philosophy, and a certain earnestness
of misguided conviction of the truth of peculiar prevalent economical theories,
Which seems to have led him off his feet, and to have induced him to venture
upon any extravagance in their support. It is in vain to attempt to hide these
subjects out of sight. This one book of 600 closely printed pages is in its third large
edition, It is of no use to ignore the topic as either delicate or disgusting. It is
of universal interest. It concerns intimately every human being.”—From an
adverse review, occupying six columns in The Weekly Dispatch, January and
February, 1860.
,
Extract from an Article by Professor Mantegazza, of Florence, in the Journal
Medico di Casa, of \6th January, 1874.
“This work has had eleven English editions, two French, a German and a
Dutch one; and is about to be published in Italian and in Portuguese; and we who
have read and meditated on it, rejoice with the author at this success, auguring
for it new and increasing good fortune.
“He is convinced that in this lower world too many people are born, and hence
very many of them are condemned either to a premature death, or, what is worse,
to a wretched life, oppressed by hunger and suffering. He comes forward there
fore to propose what we ourselves have modestly urged in our ‘Elements of
Hygiene ’ since 1864, when we said * Love, but do not have offspring.’ A disciple
of Malthus and of Stuart Mill, he is well versed in modern philosophy and in
political economy, and studies the abstruse problem in all its aspects, setting out
from the most elementary domestic hygiene to raise himself gradually to the
lofty regions of human dignity and civil progress. A foe to all hypocrisy and
prejudice, the author of the ‘ Elements of Social Science ’ calls things by their
real names, and shrinks only from the excessive sufferings and privations to
which the poor children of Adam are condemned. He is firmly convinced that
to measure human fecundity in accordance with the economical production of
families and of nations is the most certain means of destroying pauperism and
all the forms of want; and in this perhaps he is in error, for the evils of modern
society have many sources, and with the drying up of one (perhaps even the most
fruitful), another and another would present themselves, which only the eombined
and constant labours of future generations will perhaps be able to overcome.
However this may be, the courage with which the author faces one of the most
formidable problems of human society is most praiseworthy.
“ Human morality is gradually changing its centre of gravity to rest upon a more
■olid and durable basis. In this new morality the doctrines of Malthus and those
of the author of the ‘ Elements of Social Science ’ must also have a large share.
�In the place of alma-giving which humiliates, in the place of charity which
caresses an evil that it does not know how to cure, there will be substituted^
preventive philanthropy, which by studying want and suffering in their most
hidden and deep-seated springs, will be able radically to remove them. Juris*
prudence, medicine, and morality follow the same movement, are aiming at tho
same end—to prevent rather than to cure.”
**
motto of the work: * The diseases of society can, no more than corporeal
maladies, be prevented or cured, without being spoken about in plain language99
(John Stuart Mill), and its dedication to the poor and suffering, are sufficient to
show the tendency of the author. He uses, indeed, a directness of expression, an
outspokenness, which is seldom met with in our times, and will probably in most
circles of so-called refined society be styled very shocking if not cynical, though in
reality it is not so. The author only calls by their names things which we medical
men also have to discuss openly among ourselves and with patients, but which
are treated by polite society according to the Parisian proverb, ‘cela se fait, maia
cela ne se dit pas.’ The author, as appears from the title and from his profes
sional knowledge, is a medical practitioner. He merits, therefore, the attention of
his colleagues, the more so because, in the first place, they would scarcely guess
from the title that this is a book for medical men-—and secondly, because his
medical colleagues alone possess the education which permits them to estimate
without prejudice the aims and efforts of the author, to try the truth of the facts
which he lays down as premises, and, after due consideration, either to accept or
reject, or to limit and amend, his conclusions and proposals. . . . The author’s
remarks on the social questions in general are among the best and most deeplyfelt we have ever read.”—Schmidt's Jahrbiicher der gesammten Medinin. Band 152,
This is one of those books of which little is spoken, but which nevertheless
are wont to produce a quiet lasting effect, while finding their readers at length in
this way that under the influence of peculiar circumstances one person confiden
tially tells another that in such and such a work there is something to be found,
• • •
au^*hor is, as a natural inquirer, what one must perhaps still call a
materialist and a Darwinian; as a political economist—and he is by no means an
insignificant political economist—he belongs to the left wing of the free trade
school, to which, in spite of some differences of opinion, he lends on the whole a
great impulse, anticipating with confidence its ultimate and complete ■victory
throughout the whole cultured world.”— Vierteljahrsschrift fur Volkswirthschaft
wid Culturgeschichte, edited by J. Fancher. XII. Jahrg.
*
must
accustom himself to the openness with which the author treat!
his themes; but the work is unquestionably most instructive and interesting, and
to written with great knowledge of the subject.”—Hessische Morgenzeitung, Dec.
24th, 18 71.
No one, who has turned his thoughts to the solution of the most burning of
tai questions of the day, the social question, and who wishes to devote to it his
mental and practical energies, will be able to leave unread this book, whose
anonymous author, basing himself on the Malthusian essay ‘ On the Principle of
Population,’ deduces from it with keen logic a peculiar and most striking theory
On the cure of the three primary social evils—poverty, prostitution, and celibacy
; • •, Whatever may be said against this fearless laying bare of the most
Intimate relations of social life and agaiust his whole theory, purely and
undisguisedly materalistic as it is—even the opponent of the daring socialist will
be unable to deny him the merit of scientific closeness of reasoning, and what is
quite as important, of warm and zealous philanthropy; he will rather honour the
moral courage and mental energy which the author must have had to work his
way out of the bewildering maze of hitherto unsolved problems and conflicts, to a
conviction so logically consistent, so luminous, and yet so opposed to established
institutions and to the moral sentiments in which men have been brought up.”—•
KOnigtbtrger Hartungsche Zeitung. December 4th, 1871.
‘ The author treats, in an open and unreserved manner, the diseases of the human
frame, as well as those of society, because he is convinced, with Stuart Mill, that'
. they can only in this way be prevented and cured. In truth we have learned]
�from many years* experience that such Is the ease. We bring therefore to the
notice of our readers, and recommend them to procure, this excellent book."
Sonntags-Blatt, Organ fiir die Freidenker Deutschland*, edited by Dr. Auer. SDech't
January 26th, 1873.
8 P
“Many of the author’s views are diametrically opposed to oar own, but we
cannot refrain from describing the book as in very truth an epoch-making one
whose perusal must interest in the highest degree, both thx professional man and
the educated general reader. Nothing is gained by a prudish avoidance of the
subjects treated in the work; they nvxst be discussed, and mankind might con
gratulate themselves if this were always done in so candid and disinterested a
manner as by the author of ‘The Elements of Social Science.’”—Jfanoversch*
Anzeigen und Morgenuiiung. November 14th, 1871.
“A very remarkable book. ... A regard to the nature of the subject*
treated of forbids us to enter further into its contents—an exposition of the inner
conditions of social life which, for obvious reasons, lie outside the sphere of the
daily press. Suffice it to say that we have here to do with a work which differs
widely from the common-place productions of the book market, and which will
very probably go through no fewer editions in philosophic Germany than in
England.”—Reform, Hamburg, 28th October ,1875.
“ There must come an end to the ignorance of the laws of physiology. Every
ene ought to know; and it must be left to his own requirements and his own
judgment what use he will make of his knowledge. We must cease to regard as
God’s will, as destiny, as the inevitable, what is not so. We must cease to look
upon that as a duty, which can be defended on no single ground of humanity or
social interest Herein lies the great merit of Owen, when he already, in 1830,
published in America his ‘ Moral Physiology; ’ of the anonymous author and the
translator of the ‘ Elements of Social Science,’ and I may add of the publishers,
Truelove, in London, and Nijgh & Van Ditmar, in Rotterdam.”—From an article
by Mr. Van Houten (member of the Dutch Parliament) in the Dutch Monthly
Review, Vragtn des IKjds, October, 1876.
“ This large book is written by a man of science and of feeling ; it is pervaded
with the life, strength, and earnestness of a deep conviction. Politico-economical
ind medical theories are set forth so popularly that a child could understand
them. The author lays down as the foundation of his work the doctrines of
Malthus and Ricardo. . . . The injunction to abstain from marriage roused
(gainst them all humane and liberal people, while the momentous truth at the
root of their teachings lay buried as it were, and was long trodden under foot
and covered with bitter ridicule; but scientific truth never dies, it rises again
unexpectedly arrayed in all its armour, and often at the very time when
whole councils of physicians are predicting its inevitable decease. The author
of the ‘ Elements of Social Science ’ examines Malthus’s work, rigorously verifies
its propositions, and comes to the conclusion that Malthus was unquestionably in
the right; he does not, however, rest satisfied with Malthus’s remedy, but pro
poses his own universal means of relief. . . . We have here, doubtless, merely
glanced at the views expressed by the author; this is a large work, requiring
attentive perusal, and we confidently recommend it to the enlightened Russian
public, since only through them can the ideas therein contained find their way to
the world of labourers; the book is a great intellectual acquisition ; it is admirable
not only for its strictly scientific, logical, comprehensive and liberal views, but for
its deep humanity and warmth of heart. The author stands on practical ground,
he advocates things possible and capable of introduction in every country at a
given moment; his ideas, without doubt, do not exclude a social revolution, but
in their clearness and definiteness they lie nearer to actual life.”—OOinee jlUO
(Russian Monthly Journal), September, 1877.
3
�
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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State measures for the abolition of poverty, war, and pestilence
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Drysdale, George
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 68, [4] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: By 'A doctor of medicine'. Author's name handwritten in pencil on title page. Publisher's advertisement for Drysdale's Elements of social science, and reviews, on unnumbered pages at the end. Three articles, the last two reprinted from the National Reformer. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Contents: State remedies for poverty -- Can war be suppressed? -- The extinction of infectious diseases.
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E. Truelove
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1886
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N195
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Social problems
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (State measures for the abolition of poverty, war, and pestilence), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Communicable Diseases
NSS
Poverty
War
-
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Text
■ 7'7,
•'■fu
LARGE OR SMALL FAMILIES?
ON WHICH SIDE LIES
THE BALANCE OF COMFORT?
BY AUSTIN HOLYOAKE.
To be publicly known as a Freethinker is not respectable, to be suspected
of Atheism is monstrous, and to be an avowed Malthusian is detestable!
These are weighty reasons why a man who wishes to- be “ thought well of
by his neighbours,” and who is “quite sure the world will go on well
enough without his interference,” should hold his peace, make money, and
die in the odour of respectable sanctity “universally regretted by a large
circle of acquaintances.*’ But to some men conscience is higher than
consequence. This may be their misfortune, but they are afflicted with the
infirmity of speaking out what they think, because they are infatuated
enough to imagine that what they have to say may benefit others. There
are the names of many men in history who have done this thing, generally
to their own loss, but to the world’s great advantage.
Without the vanity of insinuating that what I may say will ever be
recorded in history, and knowing that the force of the argument of the
present paper can only apply to certain states of society in certain coun
tries, I wish to record for the first time convictions which I have enter
tained for many years, believing and hoping sincerely that they will be
productive of benefit and not of evil to others.
That most delicate of all subjects, the Population Question, the news
papers generally shun lest they should lose caste, and the medical periodi
cals are dead against it. But then it is a question which presses for
solution more and more every day, and which underlies the happiness of
the great mass of the population in all old and over-populated countries;
it therefore becomes imperative that some one should endeavour to point
out a remedy, or at least a palliative for the widespread misery, suffering,
and disease which are kept up and perpetuated from generation to genera
tion. This topic has been dilated upon by men whose names will
be remembered in history, and all honour to them for their courage. The
Rev. Mr. Malthus, though his views in some respects I believe to have
been radically defective, did more good by the attention he called to this
question, than by all the dogmatic sermons he ever preached. Robert
Dale Owen, the worthy son of a worthy sire, wrote his invaluable tract
entitled “Moral Physiology;” Dr. Knowlton published his pamphlet
“ Fruits of Philosophyand later has appeared a work—to which is due
the honour of having revivified Subject which had become dormant from
the close of the Socialist agitation in 1844, till the time of its appearance
— “The Elements of Social Science.” Other works treat upon population,
from Mr. John Stuart Mill’s great treatise on “ Political Economy,”
down to a penny tract entitled “ Poverty: its Cause and Cure. ” This
question is the political problem of to-day, and he who solves it will be the
most useful man of his age.
�.Large or Small Families ?
Various schemes are propounded for the amelioration of the growing
want and misery of this country, such as Home Colonisation, Emigration,
Co-operation, Trades’ Unions, and the like. All writers and statesmen
admit the fact of an increasing population, and consequently an increasing
poverty, pauperism, and starvation. But this may be taken as an absolute
truth, that no one scheme could supply an universal remedy, the causes of
poverty and suffering in our civilised mode of life being so multifarious.
I do not intend to travel over the whole field of politics, or out of this
small country of ours. I wish to narrow the question to a very small
compass, and to individualise it; here is the root of the evil, and when
the root is diseased, neither branches nor leaves can be healthy.
England is a small island, and, in proportion to the land under cultiva
tion for human food, it is over-populated No one disputes that fact
The over-population produces disease, suffering, starvation, and death.
If instead of thirty, we had twenty millions of human beings, would there
not be a better chance of health and food for all ? Home colonists say that
as long as there is land in this country, it ought to be cultivated, and then
double the present number could be maintained. This is not to be disputed.
But supposing that by some grand act of legislation, the whole land of this
country were to be suddenly distributed to the people, and made to main
tain double the present population, how long would society be in a better
state than it is now? Just twenty-five years! But supposing it took
longer, still the inevitable result would ultimately come, unless some sys
tem of regulating the population were adopted. This island is limited,
and unless the people on it consent to limit their numbers, the evils from
which we now suffer, will not only not diminish, but will go on increasing.
I am not unmindful of the disproportions and inequalities which abound,
and which must be considerably modified before anything approaching to a
rational state of society can obtain. I have always warred against the
injustice of our societary arrangements, and I believe the efforts of the
social reformers of this century have been productive of lasting good to
our race. But in the present day, in spite of all the teaching and
preaching we have had during the last half century, we find ourselves in
the midst of a more widespread misery and starvation than perhaps
England has ever known before. We talk of the sacredness of human life,
but human life shares the fate of every other “ article ” which gluts the
market—it becomes depreciated in value; and it will, as amatter of course,
never rise in value so long as the supply is abundant. England’s weak
ness at this moment is her oyerwhelming population. We devise schemes
of emigration to get rid of those who are compelled to abandon the place
of their birth, and sever the ties of kindred and home, and seek for a sub
sistence in the uncultivated wilds of a foreign land thousands of miles
away from the associates of their youth and the friends of their maturity.
Let those who think it is a good thing that the Anglo-Saxon race should
people the world, watch the poor emigrants as the ships leave our shores,
and also look into the faces of the relatives and friends whom the expa
triated are parting with for ever, and t^n say if it would not be more
humane to prevent so much agony in the world. Granted there may be
plenty of beautiful spots on this globe which are suitable for new colonies,
still it is the last duty I should consider incumbent upon me to send my
children to inhabit them. It is no concern of mine, or any man’s in
particular, whether these places are populated or not. The aborigines of
every sparsely peopled country that the Anglo-Saxon race have seized
upon to which to carry the “ blessings of rum and true religion
�Large or Small Families ?
whether it be Africa, America, Australia, New Zealand, or elsewhere—
have never had reason to believe in the righteousness of the “ pale faces ”
over-running their land; for wherever Englishmen go, there they spread
vice, disease, and death among the “ untutored savages,” and never rest
till they have exterminated the ancient possessors of the soil.
More than nine-tenths of the natives of England would prefer to
remain in the land of their birth, if they could be ensured a moderate
return for their industry. The “ roving Englishman ” is generally a
person of means, who travels about the world for his own amusement,
knowing he can return at any moment he feels “ home sick.” The great
majority of people object to leave even the town in which they have been
reared, hence the crowding of large cities, London especially. And if
this question were confined to the town-life aspect of it alone, there would
be much to be said in favour of limitation. In fact, it is here that it
presses with such peculiar force upon the thoughtful artisan, the small
tradesman, and the professional man,
A working man in London, with a large family, if he be reflective, and
a person of some refinement, cannot have a happy home. The conditions
of happiness to him do not exist. He has no privacy, and the proper de
cencies of domestic life are not at his command. His children are not
surrounded by the necessary conditions to ensure their healthy training,
either physically or mentally. His eldest boy may be his pride, and he
thinks he would make a bright man if he could be sent to a good school for
a number of years; but then there are five or six others to be considered,
and in justice to them he cannot spend money in the education of one, which
is required for the food and clothing of the others. And so that wish of his
heart is thrust down, and the boy, instead of becoming a brilliant man in
some profession, is made a carpenter, a shoemaker, or blacksmith, and is
known in after years as “ Harry Despond, who would have been a clever
fellow if he had been educated when young?” And in times of trade
disputes, when the toiler is impelled to resist some reduction in his wages,
trifling though it may seem, but which will make the difference to him
between subsistence and semi-starvation—who is it who holds out longest
in “strikes” (those battles of the poor swarms against the rich few), he
who has one or two children, or the man who “ has a large number depend
ing upon him?” The thoughtless working man supplies the weapons for
his own defeat.
The small tradesmen—that large section of the population of England
who form what is called “ the lower middle-class”—are influenced in the
same degree, though in a different way. At periods of public excitement
—it may be a municipal election, or a general election, or when some dar
ing attempt of a retrograde Government is made to wrest from the people
one of their dearly-bought liberties—if you appeal to the small tradesman
for his active co-operation in the popular cause, you are constantly met by
the reply,I would if I dared, but then you know I have a large family
dependent up me; I would not care for myself, but I am bound to think of
them. My sympathies are entirely with you, but I am obliged to keep
quiet, for it is as much as I can do to pay rent and taxes, and keep the
wolf from the door.” And so the ever-present obstacle in this island, “ a
large family,” stands in the way of education, reform, social comfort, and
a thousand necessary and desirable changes. But to what do we mainly
owe this state of things ? Why, to that pestilential doctrine derived from
the Bible, “ Increase and multiply,” which is taught in our churches
as an “ ordinance of God, ” and which has been the cause of more crime
�4
Large or Small Families ?
and anguish in England than any other false doctrine that ever cursed the
land. No one is bound to increase and multiply, excepting it be perfectly
agreeable to him and suitable to his circumstances in life. No man is
master of his fate so long as he keeps on multiplying “ circumstances”
which control him at every turn.
The class of clerks in London are numbered by the thousand. They
may be in Government departments, in laweyrs’ offices, in banks, in mer
chants’ warehouses, and other places. They have to sustain the external
appearance of gentlemen, and their incomes are fixed, or if they increase,
it is only by slow degrees, providing they remain in one establishment for
a number of years. But as domestic matters are usually managed, their
responsibilities multiply yearly, and there is no corresponding increase of
means. And all know what a misery genteel poverty is. During the first
three or four years of the married life of a poor professional man, he can
manage to live in a decent neighbourhood in town ; but as time goes on,
he must either remove into an inferior locality, or move out of town into
the suburbs, as, having a number of children, he is “ objected to on
account of his family ” in every desirable house where he wishes to occupy
apartments only. And let every man reflect hew much he loses of rest, of
time, of money, and of opportunities of instruction, of amusement, or of
friendly intercourse, by being obliged to “catch a train” or an omnibus
every night of his life; and the same anxiety and excitement have to be
repeated every morning, when he who has to pursue a daily occupation
in town is compelled, by economical considerations, to live out of it. A
physician some time ago gave it as his experience, that the mortality
among city men whs lived out of town, was greatly in excess of that among
those who lived only a walking distance from their places of business,
owing to the excitement induced by anxiety to catch the train or omnibns
night and morning.
Hitherto I have viewed this question almost entirely ffom the man’s
point of view. But that is not the whole aspect of the case. There is the
woman’s, which is quite as important, as the happiness of the world may
be said to be in her keeping. The marriage state is the only rational and
moral state for the vast majority of adult human beings, and anything that
prevents or even hinders that, injures the individual and society. But
then the advocates of unlimited families do not hesitate to praise the pru
dence of the young man who says “ he cannot marry until he has made a
position in the world.” They surely cannot reflect upon the many evils
arising from delay. Look at the state of our streets, and read the pro
ceedings of the coroners’ courts. We are taught to regard with horror the
custom in China of regulating their population by killing a certain propor
tion of the female children; but what is the condition of London, where,
Dr. Lancaster says, the hands of thousands of mothers are imbrued in the
blood of their infants, and where specimens of “ God’s image ” done to
‘death may be picked up in the squares, on door steps, and fished out of
the river between the rising and setting of every sun ? Is this a state of
things to be pleaded for, and is there no remedy to be devised to put an
end to so much brutalising demoralisation ? If persons understood tha1 it
was possible to have early marriages and small families, a marked change
would be visible in society in a few years. In the present state of the
population in England, if every adult male were to take a wife, there
would then remain an enormous number of women without husbands.
Some persons think they see in the plan of Dale Owen and others, the door
opened to wide-spread immorality. This fear would be entitled to respect
�La/rge or Small Families ?
5
if the present state of society were perfect. There is no plan on 3ny sub
ject that may not be abused. In spite of the deadly consequences arising
from immorality now, thousands upon thousands of reckless and vicious
people abound who dare all consequences. Everybody agrees that the social
problem wants solving, and that “ some remedy ought to be devised," but
very few have the courage to broach this population question, owing to the
sneers and odium they have to encounce. The remedy now proposed can
be adopted by every individual as soon as its expediency is seen.
All men, generally speaking, not only admire their own wives, but are
gratified when other people speak approvingly of their healthy and
pleasing looks after years of married life. But those men who admire their
wives most, are too often reckless of the charms which win admiration.
Constantly do we hear it said by persons when speaking of married women
—“ Ah, I knew Mrs.------ before she was married. She was one of the
prettiest girls in our neighbourhood a few years ago; but she has had
children so fast, that she is a complete wreck of her former self.” This is
of so common occurrence, that almost every adult person knows a case in
point. But how cruel all this is to the woman. No man, however philoso
phical he may be, or however “ high ” his moral principles, feels the same
interest in a faded wife, as he does in a bright and healthy one. There
are exceptions, of course, but in the overwhelming majority of cases, the
deterioration of the wife arises from the selfishness of the husband. Man first
destroys the greatest charm of his life, and then has the “ consolation" of
knowing that he is the author of his own misery. He who is blessed with
a wife who retains the bloom of youth through a number of years, glides
into the vale of life unconscious of a thousand troubles which rack the
souls of men not so fortunately circumstanced. There is much talk about
conservatism in politics; but if there were a little more thought devoted to
conservatism in domestic life, it would be better for the human race. In
married life, the domestic affections may be more perfectly realised by a
small family than a large one, and the truest love and the most generous
consideration go hand in hand.
It has been frequently maintained, that the children of large families
make better men and women than those of small ones, because, having to
go out into the world from the earliest age, they learn to “ rough it, ”
whereas the children of small families are brought up more tenderly, and
are apt to be a little pampered. It is undeniable that two children only
in a family are more likely to be better nurtured than four or six, but that
they are always spoiled thereby, is no more true than that the roughly
“dragged up” always make industrious and useful citizens. If there be
any truth in the alleged refining influence of education and good surround
ings, the balance of probabilities is against the roughly trained being so
useful in the world as the cultivated. And at what a cost is this “ rough
and vigorous ” member of society produced. The mother of a numerous
progeny risks her life eight or ten times, besides passing the best portion
of her existence in continual suffering. A grave charge made by oppo
nentsis, that to check the population is an “ abnormality,” and must im
pairs the health of both man and woman. This is not true; but if it were,
it would be easy to show that the ailments forced upon women in a
“natural” way, far exceed any possible to arise from an exercise of
prudence. In hundreds, nay thousands of families in this country, the
doctor and the undertaker are constantly in attendance; and where such
is the case, who can say that there is a “home,” in the true sense of
that term, for either the father or r >ther? With a large family, the
�6
La/rge or Small Families ?
father is never free from the harassing care of providing the means for
their bare subsistence. A working man who has to support six or eight
besides himself, has little leisure and small desire to cultivate his own mind,
and this is a fact worthy of consideration by all who wish well to the
present generation. The most delightful impulses of our mature years are
excited and called forth by the love of children, but the impulses are
always checked, and sometimes almost obliterated, when anxiety and de
privation enter the house. To preserve the happy medium is a wise
economy of the small share of happiness which falls to the lot of man.
(It must not be forgotten, that the whole of my arguments have
special reference to the working classes, of whatever degree.)
Duggan, the man who recently murdered his wife and six children,
and then committed suicide, might have been alive and compara
tively happy, and the world have been saved the remembrance of an
appalling crime, if he had had two children instead of six. He was a
journeyman silversmith with a moderate wage, and for eight persons to
be sustained out of so limited an income, meant semi-starvation, with no
education for the children, and perpetual drudgery for the mother, for how
was she to maintain a servant out of her scanty weekly allowance ? Dug
gan was a man of weakly body, and possibly weakly mind, and had he
been relieved of sixty-six per cent, of his “ responsibilities,” in all
probability he would have been able to have borne his burden through
life.
Children who are well cared for and gently reared, experience in their
early days the purest and most unalloyed happiness that life can give.
But how few members of large and poor families ever wish to pass their
childhood over again. And if one or both parents should die early, how
rarely is it that more than two or three out of a family of six or eight
ever “do well.” Their number is a bar to their prospects, and their
relatives being totally unable to provide for such a “ swarm,” they are
left to the tender mercies of an already over-stocked society, and their
destiny becomes impossible of calculation.
It is urged, that to interfere with the domestic relations, will be to press
with peculiar hardship upon the poor. I think this is a mistaken notion.
I have been endeavouring to show that the tradesman and professional
man, as well as the artisan, would be more independent with fewer “ en
cumbrances,” as the supposed child-loving population designate children;
but the poor man, in consequence of his poverty, has most to gain by pru
dence. The real objection underlying the opposition, though it is not openly
expressed, is the idea of the deprivation of pleasure supposed to be involved.
But this by no means follows. And if it were so, I think I have shown
that it would be but tbe substitution of one advantage for a greater. Earl
Russell, in a non-Parliamentary address, said, a few years ago, that life
was a “compromise.” He was certainly right, look at life as we may.
The same passion or desire, though felt by all, does not operate in all with
the same intensity. Some require more sleep than others, but they can
not indulge in it if their position in life does not admit of it. One man has
an inordinate craving for drink, but when he gratifies it at tbe expense of
his means and his sobriety, all “ society ” condemn him. Another has a
dainty appetite, and must have expensive dishes and plenty of them—he
is an epicure, A sluggard who is selfish, will only work half a day, when
he ought, to keep his family in decent circumstances, t© labour a whole
one—him we shun as lazy. But the man who has ten children, when he
can only keep two, we pity, and subscribe for, and regard as unfortunate.
�Large or Small Families ?
1
But where is the difference? Why should one passion or desire have
more immunity than the others?
Some opponents of the practice of limiting the population, urge that the
future state of society should be considered, and profess to dread the pros
pect of the world being without inhabitants. I confess that this consider
ation does not disturb me. In fact, I do not consider it incumbent upon
me to provide for a “ possible ” future. I am interested in the improve
ment of the present state of society, and I feel perfectly assured the future
populations of this globe will be more likely to know how to regulate
their own affairs than we are. The present generation being anxious to
control the future, is like a miser wishing to dispose of his wealth even
after his death. The great difficulty in politics is how to get rid of the
laws and restrictions bequeathed to us by our ancestors, who were no
doubt very solicitous that people in after ages should be “ well governed,”
forgetting that every new generation has fresh ideas and fresh require
ments.
I never heard but one argument, from a national point of view, against
limiting the population, which struck me as possessing any force, and it is
this. It is said, and said justly, that the thoughtful people who are
capable of self-control, are the best citizens; and if they reduce their own
numbers, by limiting their families, they are virtually abandoning society
to the vicious and improvident classes—the swarms who generate and
overspread the land like some of the prolific lower animals. This is a
little startling to the man who is desirous, not only of improving present
society, but that which is to follow. But hitherto the competition between
the two classes has not been very encouraging, for while “ every day a
wise man dies, every minute a fool is bom.” Of course it will be urged,
why seek to lessen the chances of the inferior classes being counter-balanced
by the superior? I think the prudence inculcated by the system of early
marriages and small families will not have that effect, for it is not exclu
sively from the lower, or even the lowest class that all criminals spring.
The younger sons and daughters of middle and upper class parents, having
the notions of “gentility ” without the means, frequently have recourse to
questionable practices to keep up “appearances.”
This question, viewed physiologically, to the student of human nature
is a most interesting one. Our present system of haphazard marriages
is productive of a great deterioration of the human race. Unions
are daily contracted between people who ought never to come to
gether, and if the evil could be limited to the contracting parties,
it would be of inestimable advantage to society. There are also others
who are attracted to each other by the strongest feelings of love,
and to prevent their marriage would be a real hardship; but for such
people to become parents is a crime. Robert Owen was a firm believer in
the influence of circumstances in the formation of character, and advocated
the surrounding of every individual at birth with superior associations, in
order to develop the good, and suppress the evil, tendencies of their natures.
This is sound and rational. But a vast amount of disease and vice would
oe prevented if the “ education ” commenced earlier—namely, if parents
Were only to have children when they themselves were perfectly healthy,
and when their means would allow of their properly nurturing and educat
ing all their offspring alike. The late Pierrepont Greaves was a strong
advocate of this system of regenerating the world, and was somewhat op
posed to Robert Owen’s doctrine of circumstances. Robert Owen’s cele
brated saying was this—“ Man’s character is formed for him and not by
�8
Large or Small Families ?
him." Mr. Greaves formulated his thesis thus—" As being is before
knowing, so education can never remedy the defects ef birth." There is a
world of truth in both sayings, and if Greaves were acted upon first,
and Robert Owen afterwards, a few generations hence would be the
heritors of sound bodies and sound minds; and the enormous sums now
spent in doctors to cure diseases which need never exist, in parsons who
flourish out of the superstition engendered by ignorance, and the policemen
and jailors who are employed to punish the vice and crime arising from
defective organisations and immoral training—might be devoted to schools
where real knowledge would be taught, and in the purchase of necessaries'
for domestic happiness, without which no family is free to develop to the
full its mental and moral attributes.
There is no possibility of gainsaying the fact, that this country is overpopulated, that at our usual rate of increase it must always remain so, and
not only not improve, but gradually grow worse. There is only one of two
ways of relieving the over-stocked labour market, and that is by death or
emigration, and either one is a calamity from which we all instinctively
shrink. I have not considered the state of any other country than Eng
land, and I have not directed my remarks to any other, whether continen
tal or American. The social problem at home presses for solution, and in
adducing this as a remedy for much of the evil which threatens to over
whelm us, 1 do not pretend that it is free from objection, but I do submit
that it is worthy of serious consideration.
In this tract I have endeavoured to show, that persons of a ** philoso
phical ’’ turn of mind may marry early and avoid the evils of delay; may
cultivate the domestic affections at a moderate cost of health and anxiety;
may conserve the charms which yield the keenest joy in wedded life; may
ensure to their offspring sound bodies and sound minds; may train those
minds to the fullest extent and under the happiest circumstances; may keep
their children around them and get them well placed; may control their
own fate and maintain their independence; and if my conclusions be sound,
there can be little doubt on which side lies the balance of comfort.
[Those who are not acquainted with the practical remedies, will find all
necessary information in the little tract “ Poverty: its Cause and Cure,”
price one penny. J
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London: Printed and Published by Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court,
Fleet Street, E.C.
�
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Large or small families? On which side lies the balance of comfort?
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Holyoake, Austin
Description
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
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[Austin & Co.]
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[n.d.]
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G4952
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Birth control
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Birth Control
Marriage
Population Increase
Poverty
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Text
Price One Penny.
THE
Australian Labour Market.
STARTLING DISCLOSURES.
By JOHN
NEW
SOUTH
WALES
NORTON,
LABOUR
DELEGATE.
Distress and Destitution in New
South Wales.
Pauper Relief Works & Soup Kitchens.
BOGUS “EMIGRANTS’
INFORMATION OFFICE.”
LONDON: THE MODERN PRESS, 13, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C
1886
�All who are interested. in Socialism
should, read.
THE FOLLOWING PUBLICATIONS , OF
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, London, E.C.
Which will be sent post free at the published prices on receipt of
an order amounting to one shilling or more.
(The Publications of the Modern Press can be obtained from W. L.
Rosenberg, 261, East Tenth Street, New York City.)
Woman, in the Past, Present and Future.
By
August ' Bebel, Deputy in the Reichstag. Translated from the
German by H. B. Adams Walther. Demy 8-vo., cloth, price 5s.
This work by the best known of the German Socialists aims at showing that the
social condition of women can be permanently improved only by the solution of the
whole social problem,
The Co-operative Commonwealth: an Exposition
of Modern Socialism. By Laurence Gronlund, of Philadelphia.
Demy 8-vo., paper cover, is.
This book supplies the want, frequently complained of, of definite proposals for the
administration of a Socialistic State. Mr. Gronlund has reconciled the teaching of
Marx with the influence of Carlyle in the constructive part of his work, which is
specially recommended to English Socialists.
Socialism made Plain.
The social and political
manifesto of the Social-Democratic Federation issued in June 1883 ;
with “The Unemployed,” a Manifesto issued after the “ Riots in
the West End” on 8th February, 1886. Sixty-first thousand.
Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price id.
“JUSTICE,” the Organ of the Social Democracy. Every
Saturday, one penny.
Socialist Rhymes
from Justice.
By J. L. Joynes.
Reprinted chiefly
Demy 8-vo., price id.
Summary of the Principles of Socialism.
By
H. M. Hyndman and William Morris. Second edition, 64-pp.
crown 8-vo., in wrapper designed by Wm. Morris, price 4d.
This gives an account of the growth of capitalist production, and concludes with a
statement of the demands of English Socialists for the immediate future.
Herbert Spencer on Socialism. By Frank Fairman.
16-pp. crown 8-vo., price id.
The Working Man’s Programme (Arbeiter Programm). By Ferdinand Lassalle. Translated from the German
by Edward Peters. Crown 8-vo., paper cover, price 6d.
The Robbery of the Poor.
By W. H. P. Campbell.
Demy 8-vo., paper cover, price 6d.
The Appeal to the Young.
By Prince Peter
Kropotkin. Translated from the French by H. M. Hyndman and
reprinted from Justice. Royal 8-vo., 16-pp. Price one penny.
The most eloquent and noble appeal to the generous emotions ever penned by a
scientific man. Its author has just suffered five years’ imprisonment at the hands of the
French Republic for advocating the cause of the workers
�I
PREFACE.
VER since November 1883, when the facts of the destitution in
E London and other large towns in the United Kingdom began to
assert themselves in a way which compelled attention, Emigration has
been put forward as a satisfactory remedy by the ruling classes and
philanthropists, as well as by persons pecuniarily interested in the trans
portation of workmen to the Colonies. Some of the advocates of
State-assisted Emigration have been shown to be emigration agents in
disguise who receive a commission of so much a head for each person
they induce to leave these shores. Others are well-known to be in the pay
of land syndicates or railway companies possessed of thousands of acres
which are utterly valueless until labour has been planted on them.
The Social-Democratic Federation has never ceased to denounce the
misrepresentation and imposture which has led too many of our fellows
to cross the ocean only to find that in newer countries the capitalist
system of society condemns the worker to the same horrors as it pro
duces at home.
When the Government Emigrants’ Information Office was first
talked of, the Social-Democratic Federation again pointed out that it
could be of little advantage to the workers inasmuch as it would be
controlled and supplied with information both here and in the Colonies
by representatives of the classes who in England are interested in
relieving social pressure by exiling the poor, and who in our dependencies
favour immigration as an effective means .of overstocking the labour
market and reducing wages.
Every point of these contentions is amply proved in the following
pages which I have persuaded Mr. John Norton to allow me to publish.
He is not a Social-Democrat nor particularly interested as I am in the
welfare of the unemployed in Great Britain. But as the accredited
delegate of the labour population of New South Wales he is bound to
defend their interests which, as is amply proved by Mr. Norton’s state
ments, are threatened by the reckless misrepresentations of the Emigration
Office. I venture to suggest that members of workmen’s clubs and
political associations all over the country would do well to send resolu
tions to the Government demanding that public money should not be
expended in attempts to draw off public attention from the Social
Question at home by transporting the victims to our Colonies and
in supplying cheap labour to make the fortunes of employers at the
Antipodes.
H. H. Champion.
Secretaries of Workmen’s Clubs or Labour Organisations who would
like to hear an address by Mr. Norton on “ Australia as a Field for
Emigration” should communicate with him at 166, Westminster Bridge
Road, London.
�THE AUSTRALIAN LABOUR MARKET.
R. JOHN NORTON, the New South Wales Labour Dele
gate, now on a mission to this country in connection with the
industrial crisis at present existing in that Colony, having, in
a letter to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, denounced
the information circulated by the new Government Emigrants’ Informa
tion Office as “ glaringly inaccurate, and entirely misleading,” received
the following letter from that Department:—
“ Emigrants’ Information Office,
31, Broadway, Westminster, S.W.
“ John Norton, Esq.,
16th October, 1886.
“ Sir,—The Managing Committee of this Office have noticed a letter
signed by you, and printed in the Daily News, to the effect that the in
formation which they have issued about the labour market of New
South Wales is ‘ glaringly inaccurate, and entirely misleading.’
“ Their only object being to ascertain and make known to the public
the actual facts as to the prospects of labourers in the British Colonies,
they would be glad to learn the grounds of your criticism, and in what
respects the information in question is inaccurate and misleading.
“ If you care to call at their office, and will make an appointment, I
shall be glad to see you, and may add that any periodical reports issued
by trade societies in Australia would be acceptable.
“ Faithfully yours,
(Signed)
C. P. Lucas.”
To which Mr. Norton has replied as follows:—
“ 166, Westminster Bridge Road, S.E.,
October ¿.yrd, 1886.
“To the Managing Committee of the
Government Emigrants’ Information Office.
“ Gentlemen,—In reply to your communication ofthe 16th inst. I beg
leave to say that the grounds upon which I base the statement contained
in my letter to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, ‘ that the infor
mation recently issued by the Government. Emigrants’ Information
Office concerning the labour market of New South Wales is glaringly
maccurate, and entirely misleading,’ are the following :—
ssssssss•••
'.XVixWxW'
�5
(a) On page 8 of the penny Colonisation Circular of New South
Wales, sold by you, it is stated—‘ In New South Wales men accustomed
to agricultural or pastoral work can readily obtain employment in any
■ part of the country districts at remunerative wages.'
(b) On pages 9 and 10 of the same Circular you give a list of what
purports to be the average rate of wages earned in the majority of
skilled handicrafts in 1884 ; and on page 19 say, ‘ New South Wales,
as compared with other, and even with the neighbouring colonies, pos
sesses special advantages and attractions for the agricultural settler.’
(c) In the general broadsheet circular issued by you on the nth inst.,
and entitled, ‘ General Information for Intending Emigrants to Canada,
the Australasian, and South African Colonies,’ under the heading of
‘Present Demand for Labour,’ the following statement appears
‘ New
South Wales. There is some opening for persons connected with the
building trades, for railway and agricultural labourers.’
I consider the whole of these statements not only ‘ glaringly inaccu
rate, and entirely misleading,’ but positive misrepresentations of the real
state of the labour market in New South Wales at the present time,
which are all the more unwarrantable that they are made in the face of
the following most full and clear evidence to the contrary. ’
AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS.
The Sydney Globe newspaper of the 26th of July last states—* The
stagnation in business resulting from the deadlock in the Western dis
trict has at length attracted the attention of the Sydney Mercantile body.
Work on the stations and homesteads of the Saltbush has ceased ; the
contractors’ parties of tank sinkers and mechanics and waggoners have
been dispersed, and are wandering over the country penniless. Sheep
stations where 30 or 40 hands had been employed are now worked by
7 or 8 hands. The country towns feel the stoppage of circulation, and
in Sydney the pinch is felt in the return of bills unpaid instead of the
good remittances and fresh orders which came by every post while the
industry of the interior was maintained.’
On the 30th of the same month the Globe, in drawing attention to the
deplorable condition of the agricultural portion of the population of
New South Wales, and to the fact that they could not compete against
the wheat which was being landed in Sydney from Bombay at 4s. ¿d.
per bushel, observes: ‘ With his hundred acres, his hut, his children
dressed in flour-bags, his crop mortgaged before it is ripe, his utter
hopelessness of any fair or satisfactory progress, or of emancipation
from the debt which was bound around his neck on the day he settled
on the soil, is not the settler ground almost to death in the cruel mill of
competition ? ’
To that part of Statement No. 2, where you say that, ‘ New South
Wales, as compared with other, and even the neighbouring colonies,
possesses special advantages and attractions for the agricultural settler,’
I take exception ; and likewise to your remark that ‘ more than onethird of the population of New South Wales is resident in Sydney and
its suburbs, consequently, the remainder of the colony is comparatively
thinly populated.’ The first of these two statements is inaccurate, and
the second is misleading. New South Wales does not possess any
‘ special advantages and attractions for the agricultural settler ’ over
Victoria. Her bad land laws, together with the droughts and outside
r
�6
j
,
competition, combine to make it difficult for the small farmers and
settlers to live on the land, and to drive them into the towns. This is why
one-third of the whole population is, unfortunately, to be found in
Sydney and its suburbs. The area of New South Wales is 310,938
square miles, or 199,000,000 acres ; that of Victoria 87,884 square miles,
or 56,245,760 acres. Notwithstanding her vast area, New South Wales
has a somewhat smaller population than Victoria, and has only 852,017
acres under cultivation ; whereas Victoria, although nearly three-and-ahalf times smaller, has no less than 2,323,496 acres under cultivation,
i.e., 1,471,479 acres more than the mother colony, which has twice the
age of Victoria. In 1884 Victoria produced 10,967,088 more bushels of
wheat, oats, and barley than New South Wales. These few significant
figures do not, I think, indicate that New South Wales possesses, at
present, any ‘ special advantages and attractions for the agricultural
settler ’ over her Victorian neighbour, at least.
ARTISANS AND MECHANICS.
Since my arrival in this country I have received reports from nearly
every handicraft exercised in the Colony, which shows that almost every
branch of industry, and especially the building trade, is in a terribly
depressed state, as the following summary shows.
CARPENTERS and JOINERS.—Mr. Francis Willes, Secretary,
N.S.W. Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, in a letter
dated Sydney, June nth says: ‘the state of this trade is very dull, a
great number being out of work.’ A report from Mr. J. C. Simpson,
Secretary, Sydney Progressive Society of Carpenters and Joiners, dated
June 9th, states : ‘This society is of opinion that state-assisted immi
gration should cease ; and we would warn all mechanics from coming
to this colony, as trade is very bad and may remain so for some con
siderable time yet.’ These reports are more than confirmed by the
Sydney press, which shows that instead of improving, this trade has
become still worse. The Sydney Morning Herald of the 19th of August,
states: ‘ For some considerable time past the building trade has been
unusually slack, and, in consequence, many carpenters and joiners have
been thrown out of employment, so much so that about a fortnight ago
it was deemed necessary to call a meeting of the unemployed carpenters
and joiners to consider what was to be done. At the meeting a
committee was appointed to wait upon the Hon. the Minister for Works
to ascertain if any Government works could be commenced to absorb
the unemployed labour. After considerable agitation and many inter
views it was announced that employment would be found for fifty
carpenters and joiners under the Railway Department, but upwards of
300 have given in their names as out of work and needing employment.
The fifty men required were drafted out on Monday, but the list of
names requiring work had considerably increased, and on Tuesday after
noon it was decided to hold another meeting at the usual place, the
statue at the top of King Street. At the time of meeting between 300
and 400 persons had assembled. Mr. Thomas Symons, Secretary of
the Trades and Labour Council addressed the meeting. It was decided
to appoint a Committee to again interview the Minister for Works, to
endeavour to urge upon him the necessity of opening up other public
works, so that work can be obtained by the unemployed carpenters and
joiners. It was stated that many of the unemployed had been from two
�7
to four months out of work, and consequently, much distress prevailed
amongst them.’ The Sydney Globe, of the 21st of August states, ‘ Mr.
O’Sullivan, M.L.A., to-day introduced a deputation of unemployed
Carpenters to the Minister for Works, requesting him to give them work.
Mr. Thomas Symons, having stated the case of the men, showing that
there were still, nearly 400 carpenters out of work and in distress ; Mr.
Lyne, the Minister for Works, said that he had already strained his
department, to find work for fifty of their number, and he could not find
work for more till some of the railway lines were adopted. They would
then get work on the permanent way and bridges. Till then he would
endeavour to get them employment at roadmaking.’
STONEMASONS.—Numbers of the hands in this trade are out of
work, which is largely owing to the extensive importation of dressed
stone from Victoria and elsewhere ; in consequence of which the Sydney
Globe, of the 24th August last, states: ‘ that the Government has pro
mised to use native stone wherever possible, and to place a duty on the
imported stone.’
BRICKMAKERS.—Messrs. A. Boot, President, and J. Cook, Secre
tary, of the N.S.W. Brickmakers, Brickmakers’ Labourers, and Pipe
makers’ Union, state: ‘so far as the Labour market in our trade is
concerned, we are sorry to say that it is now very much overstocked,
hundreds of our men are now walking about the streets of Sydney.’
Most of the brickyards in the Colony work eight hours per day, but the
larger yards having refused to recognise the eight hours’ principle, the
brickmakers there have gone on strike, their action being supported by
all the other trades. It is hoped by the reduction of the hours of labour
of those employed, the over production will cease, and work will be
provided for the unemployed brickmakers. Large quantities of bricks
are being offered at £■$ per thousand.
Thus it will be seen that your statements that ‘ there are some
openings in the building trades and for railway and agricultural
labourers ’ is glaringly inaccurate. A precisely similar state of things
exists inmost of the other leading trades included in your list of average
wages, as a cursory glance at their condition will suffice to prove.
IRON TRADE.—A Special Committee of the New South Wales
Engineering Association appointed to inquire into the state of the iron
trade in the colony reported on the 30th of June last to the effect that
the trade throughout all its branches was in a thoroughly depressed
state ; and ‘ that there. was not a single factory which employed more
than one tenth of the workmen which the establishment was capable of
accommodating, to say nothing of the vast amount of expensive plant
lying idle, whilst a large number of firms had had to stop their engines,
there not being work enough to keep even the apprentices employed.’
In a report dated Lithgow, N.S.W., July 24th, Mr. H. S. Jones, Secre
tary of the Eskbank Ironworkers, reports that the puddlers, heaters,
shinglers, rollers and other hands at the Eskbank Works are only
working half-time, and that a large blast furnace, which was at work
four years ago, has since had to be blown out and pulled down for want of
work. There were formerly eight puddling furnaces at work here, but,
owing to the collapse of the iron trade, some of them have been pulled
down and the plates broken up. Mr. Jones concludes his report as
follows ;—‘ To any ironworkers who are thinking of coming out to this
■colony in the hope of obtaining employment in their trade, we would
�8
say be warned, be careful, we cannot hold out any hope of work whatso
ever.’
Another report from the New South Wales Friendly Society of
Ironmoulders, and signed by A. Hollis, President, W. Walker, Check
Steward, W. Jones, Secretary, and by all the members of the General
Committee of the Society, shows that a similar state of things exists in
the other provincial ironworks ; and it is stated that the Fitzroy Iron
works at Mittagong, are likely to be shut down this year for want of
work.
COACH MAKERS.—In a report dated Sydney, June gth, Mr. T.
Halliday, Secretary of the New South Wales Coachmakers’ Society,
says : ‘ This trade is at present in a very depressed state, one firm alone
having discharged thirty hands, and the greater number of factories are
only working half-time.’ This report is confirmed by the Sydney Globe
of August 28th, according to which a conference of the employers and
employed, in the coachmaking trade, met at the Foresters’ Hall, Sydney,
on the 27th of August, to consider the present depression. The same
paper stated that large numbers of men were out of work, and that the
trade was rapidly declining to utter ruin, hardly any of the factories
being more than mere repairing shops, and that such depression had
not been known for thirty years.
THE SADDLE, HARNESS, AND COLLAR MAKERS’Society of
New South Wales in a report dated Sydney, June 14th, and signed by
J. Cronin, President, W. S. Harper, Treasurer, and G. Stuart, Secre
tary, states: ‘ This particular trade is now and, in fact, has been for a
number of years past in a very depressed condition, owing mainly to
the great importations free of duty from England, the Continent of
Europe and elsewhere, which have the effect of glutting the markets
here, and underselling and driving the local manufacturers out of the
market, except in a few cases where the article cannot be imported.
The long-continued drought has played havoc, financially, with the
farmers and pastoralists of the colony who are the classes from whom
we derive the most support.’
BOOT AND SHOE MAKERS.—Mr. W. P. White, Secretary of the
New South Wales Amalgamated Operative Boot Trade Union writing
under date June 14th observes: ‘ During from four to six weeks of the
year men of this trade are idle from want of continuous employment,
and many hands are paid off in the various factories ; but this year it
has been greater than previously. The men are willing to leave the
trade when they can get a chance of turning their attention to other
things.’ This account is corroborated by an official report on the state
of this trade published in the Sydney Globe of the 24th of August last
under the heading ‘ Alarming Depression in the Boot Trade,’ in which
is given an account of the state of trade from no less than thirty of the
managers or proprietors of different boot and shoe factories in and
around Sydney. For obvious reasons the employers did not wish their
real names to appear in this ominous report, so their names were sup
pressed, and indicated by consecutive numbers. The following is a
summary of this report:—
No. 1. Very slack : closes on Friday until noon on Monday; has
done so for the last seven weeks.
No. 2. Very slack: closed from Thursday to Monday during the
last five weeks.
�9
No. 3. One of the largest m the colony. Has discharged a great
number of hands ; those retained work only seven hours per day for five
days, and are generally paid at 11 o’clock on Saturdays.
No. 4. Men engaged have not averaged two days per week for the
last six weeks.
No. 5. Discharged half the hands nine weeks ago; those retained
Work irregularly.
No. 6. Trade falling off ; factory closed two days last week.
No. 7. Usually employed ten makers and a number of finishers ; now
employ only two makers, whose average is not more than two days per
week for the last five weeks.
No. 8. Usually employed four makers and two finishers. This
factory closed for a week, then re-opened with one maker and one
finisher, the remainder being discharged.
No. 9. No cause for complaint.
No. 10. Has discharged one-third of employés ; those retained average
Only three days per week.
No. 11. Has been closed for the last twelve weeks, with the exception
Of a few apprentices and one man over them.
Nos. 12 and 13. Have been closed for the last three weeks.
No. 14. Has discharged several hands ; those retained work only at
intervals.
No. 15. Trade so slack that the whole of the employés with the
exception of three women’s workmen, were put off the whole of last
week.
No. 16. Very slack; discharged the majority of workmen; those
retained average two and a half to three days per week.
No. 17. Discharged half of hands five weeks ago; the remainder
working casually.
No. 18. Doing fairly well.
No. 19. Closed for the last five weeks.
No. 20. Very dull.
No. 21. Closed for the last ten weeks.
No. 22. Doing a fair trade.
No. 23. Very slack.
No. 24. The largest factory in the Colony. Closes at 1 o’clock on
Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and on Friday all
work has to be completed by 11'30 a.m.; pay is issued one hour later;
the factory is then closed until the following Monday. This system has
been in operation for the last three weeks. In this factory some of the
hands who have done exhibition work, that has taken first prizes, are
now making copper toes, and are doing other work usually done by
apprentices and lads.
No. 25. Discharged eighteen hands ; remainder doing limited work.
Most of weekly hands’ wages reduced, some to the extent of ten shillings
per week.
No. 26. Had but one full week during last eight weeks, the average
being three days per week.
No. 27. Trade very dull.
No. 28. Very dull; majority of employés walking about.
No. 29. Firm completely ruined. The whole of the plant was taken
and sold about six weeks ago.
This report further states that there a’re now between 600 and 700
�IO
boot and shoemakers out of work in Sydney alone; and that so deep
and wide spread is the misery amongst them, that numbers of them are
now blacking shoes and selling newspapers in the streets of Sydney, in
order to provide an honest crust for their starving wives and children.
COOPERS.—Messrs. John Strange, President: Henry McPhillips,
Secretary: John Quain, Treasurer, and five members of the Committee
of the N.S.W. Journeymen Coopers’ Society, in a report, dated from
Sydney in June last, after drawing a most gloomy picture of the de
pressed condition of the Coopers’ trade, states : ‘ In conclusion we would
strongly recommend our fellow countrymen in Great Britain and Ireland
to pause and consider before taking the important step of emigrating to
this country, at least, until they receive a more favourable report from
the trade. We hope that this report, will be the means of preventing
much misery and disappointment. There are hundreds here who would
be glad to return to England if they had the chance.’
WHEELWRIGHTS AND BLACKSMITHS.—Messrs W. M’Carty,
President, and G. B. James, Secretary, of the N.S.W. Amalgamated
Society of Wheelwrights and Blacksmiths, state: ‘An almost continuous
depression has existed in our trade for a period of two years, with very
little prospect of improvement. This state of things we attribute to a
recurrence of bad seasons in the pastoral and agricultural districts of
the Colony. The labour market is glutted owing to the influx of immi
grants.’
FARRIERS.—In a report dated Sydney, June nth, Mr. R. F. Bosden,
Secretary of the N.S.W. Journeymen Farriers’ Society, says: ‘The
trade is very brisk from November to April; from April to November it
is very dull. There are plenty of farriers out of work, and numbers of
apprentices finishing their time every week.’
PATTERN MAKERS.—In a letter to the New South Wales Trades
and Labour Council, dated Sydney, June 7th, Mr. E. W. McIntosh,
Secretary of the N.S.W. Branch of the Australasian Pattern Makers’
Society, says: ‘ In reply to your memorandum of the 3rd inst., in refer
ence to the departure of Mr. John Norton as Delegate from the Council
to England, I beg to state, for Mr. Norton’s information, that our trade
has been very dull for nearly two years, during which time very few
pattern makers can boast of constant work. State-assisted immigra
tion is strongljz protested against by our society.’
FURNITURE TRADE.—A report of the N.S.W. United Furniture
Trade Society, dated Sydney, June last, shows that this trade is at a
standstill in consequence of the competition of the Chinese, and the
wholesale importation of furniture from Europe and America.
COAL-MINERS. —Mr. James Curley, General Secretary of the
Hunter River Miners’ Mutual Protective Association, N.S.W., writes in
June last: ‘ Speaking of this (the Newcastle Mining district) it is
literally crammed with labour. The gradual influx of immigrants, from
time to time, has, at last, swamped the mining labour market. The
trade of the district is fully supplied with a surplus of 400 to 500 men.’
Mr. John Owens, Secretary of the Western Branch of the N.S.W.
Coal Miners’ Mutual Protective Association, writing on the 5th June
last, states : ‘ Trade is not brisk on account of their being too many
men. The opinion of this Association is that State-assisted immigration
is very undesirable, as the supply of labour in this district exceeds the
demand.’
�11
According to a report in the Sydney Globe of August 21st, two mines
at Captain’s Flat, Queanbey an, have recently been closed; and the
miners thus thrown out of work—who have not been paid for eight weeks,
—are in a state of semi-destitution. In answer to a petition signed by 100
of these miners, the Minister for Works has promised, if possible, to find
them employment at road making, and to pay them out of the fund for
the maintenance of the unemployed.
The same paper states that the Vale of Clwydd mine has stopped, the
manager having been instructed ‘ to stop work until further. orders.
The proprietors of the. Mount Keira and Mount Kembla collieries, in
the southern district of N.S.W., have recently given notice, to
reduce the miners’ wages after the nth ultimo. The whole of the coal
mining industry is in a very depressed state.
COAL TRIMMERS.—Mr. William Cremor, Secretary of the New
castle Coal Trimmers’ Provident Union, N.S.W., writing under date
June 7th, says : ‘ We have 150 members on the roll, and these are only
working half-time. At no time has the full number been employed.
There are too many workers for the amount of work to be done. The
mines are full, and every trade is more than full}7 supplied with labour.
Newcastle and the mining district could part with, at least, 1,000 men,
and leave but a moderate living for those remaining. In the present
circumstances, State-assisted emigration is a grievous wrong, doubly
inflicted; first, upon those who are already here, and, secondly, upon
those who are brought here. The majority of the new comers merely
gwell the ranks of the unemployed or help to reduce wages by accepting
lower rates, or, if attached to a Union, by further dividing the amount
of work to be done. At present we are making about 30s. per week.’
WHARF LABOURERS.—Mr. T. McKillop, President of the Sydney
Wharf Labourers’ Union, writing from Sydney under date, June nth,
says : ‘ I beg leave to say that the present mode of assisted immigration
is ruinous to the Colonies, as it tends to flood the labour market.’
This is very plain evidence that the New South Wales labour.market
in the above branches is in an absolutely congested state ; and it is the
same in nearly every other branch. Not one of the trades named in
your list of trades and average rates of wages can be said to be
prosperous. Both the agricultural and manufacturing industries in New
South Wales are stagnant. It is true that you make the rates quoted
apply to 1884, and state that they are subject to fluctuations, but the
depression was nearly as bad in 1884 as it is now, and the only fluctuation
has been from bad to worse. Even if the state of things in 1884 had
been appreciably better than it is now, I protest against the data of
1884 being made to apply to 1886, when, as I have shown, every branch
of industry is depressed, and large sections of the New South Wales
working-classes are suffering the acutest distress, many of them being
positively destitute.
GOLD-MINING.—There is a very erroneous and dangerous impres
sion abroad here, which has been fostered by the foolish statements of
persons who should know better, that if an artisan or agricultural
labourer, on arriving in the Colonies, cannot find work at his accus
tomed occupation, he can easily turn his attention to gold-mining.
Apart from the fact that the alluvial diggings, where individuals with
little or no capital formerly managed to gain a livelihood, are. now
exhausted, the more important fact that a man to succeed in mining
�12
must have extensive experience of the most hard and practical kind,
seems to be generally lost sight of here. The days of successful indi
vidual effort in gold-mining have long since passed away ; and what is
required now-a-days is special knowledge, long experience, and, above
all, capital. Mining m the Colonies has now entered on the scientific
stage; and, except in very rare instances, is only successful when pur
sued on an extensive scale, with large capital and under the direction of
experts.
The exciting stories about the wealth of the Kimberley gold fields, are,
for the most part, exaggerations, and even experienced miners should
await further information before joining in the ‘ rush.’ Over and over
again the Australian newspapers have warned the public against
rashly venturing into the Kimberley district, and have pointed out the
hardships and perils to be encountered on the way thither and on the
field itself. Travellers who have returned from Kimberley have warned
diggers not to venture in less numbers than parties of six, with, at least,
a couple of horses a-piece, and supplies for six months. Therefore, no
man should venture unless he has a small capital of between ^200 and
^300, to defray outfit, cost of supplies, expenses of transit by sea, journey
across country, and expenses of return journey in case of failure. Yet
in spite of multiplied warnings, hundreds have recklessly ventured, illequipped, and badly provided, with the result that many of them have
perished either by the spears of the blacks or have been “ bushed,” and
perished miserably of hunger and thirst; while others, who have escaped
these perils, have been unable to return, and have had to gain their
bread by working on the roads, or by sweeping the streets of Derby.
For an agricultural labourer or mechanic to go to the colonies with the
idea of gaining a livelihood, let alone a fortune at gold-mining, is sheer
insanity. There are thousands of experienced European miners and
swarms of Chinese on the spot, who are unable to make a living at it.
Your Publications concerning New South Wales are full of inaccu
racies and misleading statements too numerous to particularise at
greater length. This is not at all astonishing, seeing that you are
issuing old information no longer applicable to the colony. Your
publications appear to have been compiled from books and pamphlets
of the Agent-General, which have been proved over and over again,
both by the working-classes in New South Wales, and by returned
emigrants here in England, to be totally unreliable. The circulation of
such out-of-date and unreliable information appears all the more in
excusable that no effort appears to have been made to revise it. On
behalf of those whom I represent, I have to complain that sources of
the most reliable and complete information concerning the present state
of the Labour Market in New South Wales have been ignored.
Towards the end of last Session, Mr. Burt, the member for Morpeth,
presented three petitions to Parliament against State-assisted-immigration to New South Wales (1) from the Trades’ and Labour Council; (2)
from the Democratic Alliance ; and (3) from the Federated Seamen’s
Union, of that colony. All three of these petitions were nearly identical
in tenor and text; and from one of them 1 quote the second clause :—
‘ That whereas there has been a dearth of employment for skilled
‘ artisans and general labourers during the past few years, the Govern‘ ment has continued to pour into the country shiploads of immigrants
‘ for whom no work could be found. Thousands of skilled artisans,
�* enticed out to this country by fallacious promises of constant employ‘ ment at high wages, have been compelled to accept work as navvies
‘ on the relief works started by the Government of New South
‘ Wales, for the relief of the distress caused by the surplus labour
1 created by the system of State-assisted immigration.
During
‘ the last three or four years the numbers of the unemployed
‘ have increased every year, until this year they may be numbered in
‘ thousands. Last year hundreds of skilled artisans were walking the
‘ streets of Sydney without employment, or food or shelter. They were
' found by hundreds sleeping in the public streets and gardens, until, in
‘ deference to a strong public agitation which took place, the Govern‘ ment was compelled to provide them with temporary shelter, together
‘ with one blanket each, with bread and cheese to keep them from
‘ starving. Relief works had then to be started in order to grapple with
‘ the difficulty. The same state of things has occurred again this year.
‘ Large meetings of the unemployed have been held in Sydney ; the
• Government have been compelled to start relief works anew, and to
‘ establish a Special Government Bureau for dispersing the unemployed
‘ workmen throughout the colony by means of free railway passes which
‘ have been issued in thousands to the unemployed. The men thus
‘ supplied with free railway passes instead of finding employment, have
‘ been compelled to tramp up and down the country in search of work,
‘ suffering greatly from exposure and hunger, and finally forced to accept
‘ work at pauper wages at roadmaking, bush-clearing, stone breaking on
‘ Government Relief Works.’
These petitions, containing such startling information, do not
appear to have been deemed worthy of notice, as you make no
reference to them, although they have been frequently referred
to and quoted in the London and Provincial press.
In like
manner the Official Report of the Third Inter-Colonial Trades’ Union
Congress of Australasia, which met in Sydney in October last year, has
been ignored, although it contains the most full and reliable information
as to the state of the whole Labour Market of all the Australasian
Colonies. But apart from these sources of information—than which
none could be more trustworthy—the statements concerning the depres
sion actually existing in the Labour Market of New South Wales with
which the newspapers of that Colony are full, have not been even noticed
by you. None of the above newspaper extracts, which are taken from the
files of the Sydney papers received by the two last mails, have been pub
lished by you. Neither have my reiterated warnings to intending emigrants,
both in the press, and at public meetings, not to venture to New South
Wales during the present crisis; nor has the statement recently made by
Sir Patrick Jennings, the Premier of the Colony, to the effect that in
consequence of the general depression, the deficit this year would pro
bably amount to ¿"2,000,000 sterling, recommended itself to
your notice.
Had the latest files of the Sydney papers been
consulted such distressing accounts as the following, taken from
the Sydney Globe, of the 23rd of August last, would, perhaps, have in
duced you to considerably modify some of your statements with regard
to New South Wales :
‘THE UNEMPLOYED IN MELBOURNE,
It is now clearly manifest, consist in a great measure, of men
�who have recently arrived in that city from poverty-stricken South
Australia.
On the other hand, the unemployed in Sydney are a
solid substantial fact, and an overwhelming majority of their number
■consists of men who have been identified with Sydney for years.
During the past six months more than 6,000 unemployed
persons have been provided for by the Government either at the
Rookwood, Little Bay, Middle Harbour, Field of Mars, and other
■camps, or by granting them free passes to country districts. The Supply
Bill now brought before Parliament contains the item of £25,000 for the
unemployed, and no amount of sophistry will rub this fact out. The
■expenditure for the unemployed is still going on, and it will probably
total £50,000 before the end is reached. In addition to all this we
have nearly 400 carpenters asking the Minister for Works to give
them work; Coachmakers in destitution and distress ; something
like 5,000 Ironworkers who have only partial employment; while
Saddlemakers, Bootmakers and other indoor workers, are bitterly com
plaining of the hard times and scarcity of work.’
From the same source could have been learned the fact that private charity
is being invoked on every hand to alleviate the widespread misery and
■destitution among the working-classes of New South Wales, and that in
Sydney, as in London,
NIGHT REFUGES AND SOUP KITCHENS.
find more than their legitimate share of hunger and starvation to relieve.
According to the Report presented to the igth Annual Meeting of the
City Night Refuge and Soup Kitchen Charity held in Sydney on the 1st
of last month, when Sir Alfred Stephen, the Lieutenant-Governor of the
Colony, occupied the chair: ‘ It was shown that the number of meals
given away during the past twelve months was 65,685 ; and that shelter
for the night had been afforded in 25,851 instances.’
Unless such information as this is taken into consideration and given
its due weight by you when compiling and authorising the issue of your
■official circulars respecting the state of the labour market of New South
Wales, the utility of such an organisation as that which you control is
utterly destroyed. If such information as I have now placed before you
•can be legitimately ignored, I respectfully submit that the public have
been entirely misled concerning the nature of your functions ; and that
instead of being an organisation for disseminating trustworthy informa
tion concerning Her Majesty’s Colonies, the action of the Government
Emigrants’ Information Office is rather calculated to have the effect of
■shifting the burden of the social evils of this country on to the young
and struggling communities abroad, amongst which, as in the case of
New South Wales, dire distress and deep destitution already exist.
At the very outset of its career the Emigrants’ Information Office
begins by creating doubt as to the thorough reliability of the information
it issues. At the head of all its broad-sheets, hand-books, and pam
phlets it is stated that ‘ this office has been established for the purpose
of supplying intending emigrants with useful and trustworthy informa
tion respecting the British colonies . . . but that the committee of
management cannot undertake to hold themselves responsible for the
absolute correctness of every detail.’ Now this would, perhaps, be all
very well if those portions of the information, the correctness of which
the committee do not undertake to guarantee, were plainly indicated ;
»■V .v'S'"
�i5
but, as it is, the euquirer does not know what is reliable and what is not,
and thus the value of the whole is utterly destroyed. I take it that the,
money of the British taxpayer ought not to be spent in disseminating
one tittle of information calculated to promote emigration that cannot be
relied upon ; and the correctness of the information supplied by this
Government office ought to be guaranteed, or the information not issued
at all.
In the name of the working classes of New South Wales, I have to
enter a most emphatic protest against the careless manner in which the
business of the Government Emigrants’ Information Office is being
carried on. I respectfully suggest that the circulation of the publications
respecting New South Wales, now being issued by you, should be at
once stopped ; and that until they have been thoroughly revised, and made
to give a more correct account of the state of the labour market in that
colony, no further issue of them should be authorised.
I have the honour to be, Gentlemen,
Your obedient Servant,
JOHN NORTON,
New South Wales Labour Delegate.
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�Wage-Labour and Capital. From the German of
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New and cheaper edition, Royal 8-vo., price id.
By Edward Carpenter.—Social Progress and Indi
vidual Effort; Desirable Mansions ; and Co-operative Production.
One penny each.
The Man with the Red Flag : Being John Burns’
Speech at the Old Bailey, when tried for Seditious Conspiracy, on
April 9th, 1886. (From the Verbatim Notes of the official short
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The Socialist Catechism. By J. L. Joynes. Reprinted
with additions from Justice.
Demy 8-vo., price id. 20th thousand.
Socialism and Slavery. By H. M. Hyndman,
(in
reply to Mr. Herbert Spencer’s article on “The Coming Slavery.”)
New Edition, with portrait. 16 pp. Royal 8-vo., price one penny.
The Emigration Fraud Exposed.
By H.
M.
Hyndman. With a Portrait of the Author. Reprinted by per
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for February, 1885. Crown 8-vo.
price one penny.
What an Eight Hours Bill Means.
By T. Mann
(Amalgamated Engineers). New edition with portrait.
Thousand. Price one penny.
Sixth
Socialism versus Smithism: An open letter from
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Price id.
By F.
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The Chicago Riots and the Class War in the
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Price one penny.
International Trade Union Congress, held at Paris,
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Price Three-Halfpence.
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trait. Price one penny.
With Por
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An able address from a representative working man on political and social topics.
The Historical Basis of Socialism in England.
By H. M. Hyndman.
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Crown 8-vo., price 8s. 6a
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This is the only Book in the English Language which gives the Historical and
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Victorian Blogging
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The Australian labour market: startling disclosures
Creator
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Norton, John
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 15, [1] p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: Publisher's list on preliminary page, Other works on socialism listed on unnumbered back page. Title page beneath author has text: 'Distress and destitution in New South Wales - Pauper Relief works & soup kitchens - Bogus 'emigrants' information office'.
Publisher
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The Modern Press
Date
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1886
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G4970
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Australia
Socialism
Labour
Rights
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The Australian labour market: startling disclosures), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Australia
Labour and labouring classes
Poverty
Socialism