TABLE I.

WORKHOUSES, HOSPITALS, PRISONS, &c.

(From the Registrar-General's Weekly Reports, 1850, No. 26.)

The public institutions of London contained 40,783 inmates in the quarter ending March 31st, 1850, namely, 23,972 in workhouses, 3,579 in military and naval asylums, 2,847 in hospitals for the treatment of common diseases, 169 in hospitals for special diseases, 50 in lying-in hospitals, 670 in military and naval hospitals, 3,849 in lunatic asylums, 216 in hospitals and asylums for foreigners, and 5,435 in prisons. Of 10,000 inhabitants 108 were in workhouses, 14 in hospitals, 17 in lunatic asylums, 24 in prisons, 183 in some institution or another. Of the total deaths in the quarter 18 per cent. occurred in public institutions. If the proportion should continue the same, it will follow that 1 in 5 or 6 of the inhabitants who die in London will end their days in a public institution, 1 in 10 in a workhouse, 1 in 21 in a hospital, 1 in 102 in a lunatic asylum. The mortality in public institutions was 23 per cent. on the average number of inmates.

Persons Dying and Discharged; Term of Residence; Population; Rates of Mortality in 1851. Deaths in 1851 and 1853. (From the Registrar-General's Weekly Reports.)

* In 1851, eleven general hospitals had 2,762 patients constantly resident, and 2,266 patients died; the mortality was, therefore, more than 82 per cent. The patients remained, on an average, 34 days in the hospitals; 29,857 passed through the wards, and the mortality out of the whole number of sick was 7.59 in the 34 days. About 92 in 100 who entered the hospitals left them alive.

+ Including 22 children who died in lying-in hospitals.

The average number of lunatics in twenty asylums was 3,748; the deaths in the year 1851 were 394; the annual rate of mortality was, therefore, 10.51 per cent. But the patients remained, on an average, I-68 years in these asylums, and only 2,233 died or were discharged; consequently 17.64 in 100 cases terminated fatally, and of 100 persons who entered, 82:36 left the asylums alive.

§ In 1851 and 1853, of all persons who died in London about a sixth part closed their career in public institutions. The same proportion as in 1850.

TABLE K.

Average Numbers of Deaths in London, at Three Periods of Life, in each Week of the Year; derived from the Returns of Ten Years, 1843-52.

Of 100 persons who died in London, 46 had not completed their 15th year; 33 were 15 years of age, but had not completed their 60th year; 20 were 60 years of age and upwards. In the above table, the unhealthiness of the hot season is exaggerated by the cholera of 1849, during the months, principally August and September, in which it prevailed; but it is sufficiently clear that the mortality of the young in summer reaches its maximum before the middle of August.

Increase of Epidemics.

In the presence of great and undeniable improvements which the men of the present century have witnessed-the opening of new streets and parks, the supply of better house accommodation for the middle classes, the erection of churches and magnificent public and private buildings, constitutional reforms, better food, better education,

and better amusements, with all the symbols of an increase and wider diffusion of national wealth, and of an improved tone of public morals, it is both difficult and disagreeable to admit that the public health has undergone deterioration, a fact which, nevertheless, the foregoing remarks appear to have established. It may be, therefore, useful to quote the words of writers who speak with authority on this subject. In the Registrar-General's Report on Cholera, the following passage occurs (pp. iii., iv.):-"After the Revolution, the great plagues ceased, but the mortality was kept up by typhus, small pox, influenza, and other zymotic diseases. The writings of Mead, Pringle, Lind, Blane, Jackson, Price, and Priestley, the sanatory improvements in the navy, the army, and the prisons, as well as the discovery of vaccination, by Jenner, all conduced to the diffusion of sound doctrines of public health, and had a practical effect, which, with the improved condition of the poorer classes, led to a greatly reduced mortality in the present century. Since 1816, the returns indicate a retrograde movement. The mortality has apparently increased. Influenza has been several times epidemic, and the Asiatic cholera reached England, and cut off several thousands of the inhabitants, in 1832. It reappeared and prevailed again, as we have seen, with no mitigated violence, in 1849." In the first Report of the Metropolitan Sanatory Commissioners (19th Nov., 1847), it is stated that "though cases of fever were always present in certain localities in the Metropolis, yet several years commonly intervened between one epidemic season or year and another; but fever assuming a severer character, and spreading more extensively than usual in 1838, fever has prevailed as an epidemic ever since. The admissions into the London Fever Hospital since April have exceeded by several hundreds those of any corresponding period. The steadily-increasing prevalence of fever in the metropolis is further shown by the Registrar-General's return of the weekly deaths from typhus during the last three years. The weekly deaths from typhus in 1846 very generally and greatly preponderated over those in 1845, being in several weeks nearly double, and in some few more than double; the deaths in 1847 were still more in excess of those of 1846, being in numerous instances considerably more than double the number in the corresponding weeks of 1846, and in one instance more than treble; and generally from the month of August of the present year (1847), the mortality has been considerably greater than at any previous period since the commencement of the registration. It is clear, therefore, that whatever may have been. their intensity in former years, the causes of epidemic disease continue to operate in the metropolis with unabated and even with increased force at the present time. * * The dreadful extent to which entire classes of the population who have abundance of wholesome food, but who habitually live in impure air, suffer from certain epidemics, as, for example, artizans and the lower class of shopkeepers, from the very pestilence in question, affords a demonstration that the habitual respiration of impure air is an incomparably more powerful predisponent to epidemic disease than that which has been commonly assumed as the main cause, namely, absolute poverty." The following numbers bring the deaths from typhus down to the latest period:

**

Dr. Stark, in his Inquiry into the Sanatory State of Edinburgh (1817), writes as follows: "From 1780 to 1789, 1 person died annually out of every 34 living; from 1790 to 1799, 1 died annually out of every 36 living; so that, in proportion as Edinburgh was better supplied with water, and spread into the newer parts of the town, the health of the city improved. From 1800 to 1809, there died annually only 1 out of every 39 inhabitants; and from 1810 to 1819, only one out of every 40 living. Thus it is seen that in proportion as the town improvements went on, the mortality of the inhabitants diminished. The next decennial period, from 1820 to 1829, shows, however, a retrograde movement, the mortality increasing to 1 out of every 38 inhabitants annually; and being still greater during the consecutive decennial period 1830 to 1839, during which period 1 died annually out of every 34 living. During the current decennial period, there has been 1 death out of every 36 living, showing that since 1820 causes of mortality have been at work which were not then in existence, and are if anything on the increase." This deterioration, the date of which, it will be observed, very nearly corresponds with that assigned in the Registrar-General's Report for a similar change in the health of England, Dr. Stark attributes principally to a worse moral and physical condition of the lower classes, arising from the immigration of Irish into Edinburgh, who began to pour in greater numbers into that city in 1818, and, at the time he wrote, constituted nine-tenths of its paupers.

We return to Captain John Graunt, whose name has been more than once mentioned in the course of this paper, and who says, in his own quaint fashion, that "back-startings seem to be universal in all things; for we do not only see in the progressive motion of the wheels of watches, and in the rowing of boats, that there is a little starting or jerking backwards between every step forwards, but also there appears the like in the motion of the moon, which, in the long telescopes at Gresham College, one may sensibly discern." To this remark it can only be added, that if this be a law of progress in the life of a nation, we must, however reluctantly, submit to it as a necessity; but, at the same time, it will be wise to provide, by all means in our power, that progress be not superseded by a retrogression, to which "forward-startings" will be only the exceptions.

A Statistical and Historical View of the Statute Law of the Realm, and of the number of Statutes passed in each Reign from the earliest recorded period to the present time. By WILLIAM TAYLER, Esq., of the Middle Temple.

[Read before the Statistical Society, 15th May, 1854.]

In the present age, and more prominently at the present time, when the current of legislation tends so much to the improvement of our social system, by judicious and temperate reforms in all branches of our civil polity, it may be not only interesting to the jurist who has passed a portion of his life in the study of the black-letter learning of the middle ages, and to the statist, whose useful and valuable objects are beginning, through the medium of this Society, to be appreciated, but also to the public generally, to be informed of the gradual progression of the statutes of the kingdom, which have increased from a comparatively insignificant number, in the earlier reigns, to the enormous bulk to which they have now attained, of upwards of 34 quarto volumes.

In discussing a subject so large and extensive, I would take leave, as a preliminary, to notice that it would not be possible, nor is it intended in this essay, to assume a fractional precision; but the subject will be treated with sufficient minuteness to enable the reader to arrive at a just estimate of the past and present condition of the statutes, to bring some sort of order out of the chaos which exists, and to add one more link to the chain of hope, that in this enlightened age some statesman may arise, able and willing, to simplify and rescue the statute book from its present confusion.

In order to carry out the purpose of this paper, I would briefly draw your attention, historically, to the fact, that the study of the statutes gives a practical history of the times for which they were made, and shows the gradual progression from a comparatively rude and barbarous age to the high refinement and civilization in which, by the cultivation of the arts and sciences, and the noble inventions of the last and present century, we now find ourselves.

The earlier statutes, up to about the time of Edward I., were inscribed in Latin, not of a classical character, but of the most barbarous kind; then mostly in Norman French, till about the time of Richard III.; and from thence, to the present time, in the English language.

The laws created by the statutes of those earlier times, were extremely defective, and the courts of justice were in many instances overawed by the crown, or corrupted by the influence of the nobles; and great injustice and inconvenience must have arisen from such an imperfect system to the commonalty of the realm, where power often took the place of right; and, under governments where military strength and feudal tenures occasioned the community to submit with reluctance to the obligations of civil institutions which abridged their privileges.

It has been observed by a learned author, that, in early times, former laws were considered no longer in force than as they were preserved in the last publication; and, by this means, it is said, the