Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/156

 of the fact, will, I think, appear abundantly evident from the series of tables which I am now about to lay before the reader.

In constructing these Tables, I have not attempted any very minute classification of the inhabitants, from a conviction that such an attempt would defeat the object I had in view, of obtaining results on the great scale, which can alone be depended on in investigations of this nature. Instead of separating them into the different classes formerly enumerated, I have contented myself with such a general division as would enable me to contrast the parts of the district where miners chiefly reside, with those where all the other classes chiefly reside, terming the former mining parishes, and the latter agricultural parishes. It is admitted that these terms are only comparatively appropriate, owing to the limited extent of the whole district, and the intermixture, more or less, of the two classes in every parish (two, perhaps, excepted) of the Hundred.

The plan I have followed in making the division, has been to class together all the parishes in which the number of miners exceeded the remaining classes, as found by the militia returns, terming these mining parishes, and vice versa; without regarding whether the parishes so classed together were contiguous or not. This method was considered much preferable to any territorial division, as, while it correctly designated the employment of the inhabitants, (in other words, the artificial sources of disease,) it involved no risk of confounding the influence of natural causes, the small extent and character of the district rendering these the same over the whole