,379 1,114 553 532 298 38 3
Leeds, factory
town 5,286 927 1,228 1,198 593 512 225 29 2

Apart from the divers diseases which are the necessary consequence of the
present neglect and oppression of the poorer classes, there are other
influences which contribute to increase the mortality among small
children. In many families the wife, like the husband, has to work away
from home, and the consequence is the total neglect of the children, who
are either locked up or given out to be taken care of. It is, therefore,
not to be wondered at if hundreds of them perish through all manner of
accidents. Nowhere are so many children run over, nowhere are so many
killed by falling, drowning, or burning, as in the great cities and towns
of England. Deaths from burns and scalds are especially frequent, such a
case occurring nearly every week during the winter months in Manchester,
and very frequently in London, though little mention is made of them in
the papers. I have at hand a copy of the _Weekly Despatch_ of December
15th, 1844, according to which, in the week from December 1st to December
7th inclusive, _six_ such cases occurred. These unhappy children,
perishing in this terrible way, are victims of our social disorder, and
of the property-holding classes interested in maintaining and prolonging
this disorder. Yet one is left in doubt whether even this terribly
torturing death is not a blessing for the children in rescuing them from
a long life of toil and wretchedness, rich in suffering and poor in
enjoyment. So far has it gone in England; and the bourgeoisie reads
these things every day in the newspapers and takes no further trouble in
the matter. But it cannot complain if, after the official and
non-official testimony here cited which must be known to it, I broadly
accuse it of social murder. Let the ruling class see to it that these
frightful conditions are ameliorated, or let it surrender the
administration of the common interests to the labouring-class. To the
latter course it is by no means inclined; for the former task, so long as
it remains the bourgeoisie crippled by bourgeois prejudice, it has not
the needed power. For if, at last, after hundreds of thousands of
victims have perished, it manifests some little anxiety for the future,
passing a "Metropolitan Buildings Act," under which the most unscrupulous
overcrowding of dwellings is to be, at least in some sli