The dependence of national wealth on the social and sanatory state of the labouring classes

Abstract

In the year 1841, public attention was called to the duration of infantile life in the North Dublin Union Workhouse; about the same period Mr. Willis was elected a guardian, and he entered on his duties impressed with the belief, that there was an excess of mortality amongst the children of the workhouse. Circumstances had made him intimately acquainted with the very poor inhabitants of Michan's parish. He at once set about the formation of a table of infantile life, and after a minute and careful examination of the facts, collected in the course of his enquiries, was convinced that the alleged excessive mortality amongst the children of the workhouse was very much exaggerated, and that the deaths were not more numerous than in the same class outside, and not more than might have been expected, from the state of destitution and wretchedness to which the mothers were reduced before they sought admission.