§ 6. Effect of the Change on National Health.--This decay of country
life, however much we may regret it, seems under present industrial
conditions inevitable. Nor is it altogether to be regretted or
condemned. The movement indisputably represents a certain equalization
of advantages economic, educational, and social. The steady workman who
moves into the town generally betters himself from the point of view of
immediate material advantages.

But in regarding the movement as a whole a much more serious question
confronts us. What is the net result upon the physical well-being of the
nation of this drafting of the abler and better country folk into the
towns? Let the death-rate first testify. In 1902 the death-rate for the
whole rural population was 13.7 per 1000, that of the whole urban
population 17.8. Now it is not the case that town life is necessarily
more unhealthy than country life to any considerable extent. There are
well-to-do districts of London, whole boroughs, such as Hampstead, where
the death-rate is considerably lower than the ordinary rural rate. The
weight of city mortality falls upon the poor.

Careful statistics justify the conclusion that the death-rate of an
average poor district in London, Liverpool, or Glasgow, is quite double
that of the average country district which is being drained to feed the
city. We now see what the growth of town population, and the decay of
the country really means. It means in the first place that each year
brings a larger proportion of the nation within reach of the higher rate
of mortality, by taking them from more healthy and placing them under
less healthy conditions. In the case of the lower classes of workers who
gravitate to London, it means putting them in a place where the chance
of death in a given year is doubled for them. And remember, this higher
death-rate is applied not indiscriminately, but to selected subjects. It