Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/42

34 have suffered less from sickness than they did. Though no statistics are available on this point, we must assume that like causes produce like effects; and if the weaker, who would otherwise have died, have been able to survive, the strong must also have been better than they would otherwise have been. From the nature of the figures, also, the improvement must have been among the masses, and not among a select class whose figures throw up the average. The figures to be affected relate to such large masses of population, that so great a change in the average could not have occurred if only a small percentage of the population had improved in health.

I should like, also, to point out that the improvement in health actually recorded obviously relates to a transition stage. Many of the improvements in the condition of the working-classes have only taken place quite recently. They have not, therefore, affected all through their existence any but the youngest lives. When the improvements have been in existence for a longer period, so that the lives of all who are living must have been affected from birth by the changed conditions, we may infer that even a greater gain in the mean duration of life will be shown. As it is, the gain is enormous. Whether it is due to better and more abundant food and clothing, to better sanitation, to better knowledge of medicine, or to these and other causes combined, the improvement has beyond all question taken place.

The next figures I shall refer to are those well-known ones relating to the consumption of the articles which the masses consume. I copy merely the figures in the "Statistical Abstract" for the years 1840 and 1881: