fourth, seamen, watermen, fishermen, etc.; fifth, other wage clashes
and artisans; and each of these classes represents distinct sanitary
conditions and habits of life. The healthiest class is that of the
seamen, watermen, and fishermen. The mean age at death of all who died
of that class, men, women, and children, is thirty-seven years, as
compared with thirty five years for gentry and professional men; while
the mean age of shipwrights, chain and anchor makers, and iron forge
laborers is only twenty-two years. The President considered that these
points gave much food for reflection. He then touched upon the important
question of the effect of occupation upon health, and remarked: If we
take the professional and merchant class, who attend at their offices
during the daytime, we may be sure that, as a rule, they are placed
in unhealthy surroundings during that time, and in many cases have to
breathe during their hours of work as bad an atmosphere as that in which
the wage classes work. He also quoted returns showing that the great
mortality among the tradesmen class in Westminster was explained from
the fact that the best rooms in the houses in which they live were let
for lodgings, the tradesmen contenting themselves with living in the
basements or back premises, which were frequently unhealthy. He looked
for great improvements in the health of the wage classes by the
construction of improved dwellings; but, he confessed, in many cases
workmen required to be taught to attend to precautions devised for their
health.

On the subject of sickness caused by insanitary conditions, he quoted
the remark of an East London clergyman that the "poor go on living in
wretched places, but have much ill-health." He showed from Mr. Burdett's
figures that the London voluntary hospitals and dispensaries cost nearly
L600,000 a year to administer--an expenditure incurred mainly for the
purpose of "patching up" the wretched poor who had been injured by bad