Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/672

656 there is a loss of 9,692,505 weeks' work in every year, and among females a loss of 10,592,761 weeks. Thus we may believe that our whole population between fifteen and sixty-five years old do, in each year, 20,000,000 weeks' work less than they might do if it were not for sickness. The estimate is so large that it must, on first thoughts, seem improbable; but on fair consideration I believe it will not seem so. For the members of the Manchester Unity who are in the working-time of life, the reckoning is certainly true, and it is founded on the experience of between 300,000 and 400,000 members. In respect of health they may represent the whole population, at least, as well as any group that could be taken. They are not very strictly selected—they are not picked lives; yet they are such as are able, when they are in health, to earn good wages or good salaries, and, as their prudence in joining this association shows, they are comparatively thrifty and careful persons. They do not, at all events, include many of the habitual drunkards, the cripples or utterly invalids, or those who, through natural feebleness or early disease, or mere profligacy, can not earn enough to become members or maintain themselves in membership. Neither do they include many of the insane, or imbecile and idiotic, of whom there are, in our population, nearly 70,000, doing no work, and losing not less than 3,500,000 weeks' work in the year.

It would be tedious to tell the grounds on which the estimate may be deemed too high, for just as many and as good could be told on which it might be deemed too low. And it is rather more than confirmed by some estimates of the annual sickness in other and very different groups of persons.

In the army, at home, the average number of days' sickness in each year is, for each soldier, about seventeen; and, as the number of the troops in the United Kingdom is more than 80,000, we have here a loss of about 200,000 weeks' service in each year.

In the navy, on the home stations, the average number of days' sickness in each year has been in the last five years for each man nearly sixteen; so that for the total of about 20,000 men there is a loss of 45,000 weeks' service in each year.

The amount of sickness in the services thus appears much higher than in the friendly societies. This is due, in great part, to the fact that a soldier or a sailor is often put off duty a day or two for much less illness than that for which a civilian would "go on his club." Still, the one estimate may confirm the other; for the sickness in the army and navy is that of picked men, who were selected for the services as being of sound constitution, and who are in what should be the best working years of life: and, if it includes many cases of sickness for only a day or two, it excludes nearly all cases of more than a few months, such as make up a heavy proportion of the average sickness in the friendly societies and in the general population.

And I may add that the estimate from these societies, that nine