Edwin Chadwick

“ The value of a single life, according to the late Dr. Farr, is £159. Now a gain of six per thousand would be a gain to Hastings of 300 lives, and the money gain on these lives would amount to £47,700 per annum. Take the case of the wage-classes: what will be the money-value of six years more of painless life and working ability to them? To effect this money-saving there must be some expenditure for the attainment of at least a third room tenement, for which the workman's gains in wages by the gain in health will abundantly pay. ”

“ It would cost less than half the expense of a local Act, which is commonly without science, presenting examples of the wastefulness of ignorance, unreduced death-rates, such as heavily burden the country. I believe that upon a close examination of the schools at Hastings, the means of ventilation and washing, a systematised inspection of workshops, as was provided in our Regulations for the Officers of Health, and the aid of the sanitary inspectors, a further reduction of the death-rate from fourteen to eight in a thousand may be confidently anticipated, and a great pecuniary gain effected. ”

“ Our first principles of amendment set forth were, that the functions left to the unpaid the irresponsible, and the partially informed, should be supervisory only, like those of Visiting Justices to prisons, and that the real responsibility should be left to highly qualified and skilled paid officers, as has been done voluntarily in the districts of Whitechapel and St. George's-in-the-East, in the Metropolis, Manchester, Cambridge, and St. Neots, which should effect a saving of half the present outlay, and improve the quality of the administrations in. humanity and efficiency. ”

“ There would be room also for a report on education, including physical training on the half-time principle, by which enormous economies and improvements in the manners, intelligence, and earnings of the future wage-classes might be effected. The whole course of local administration, based on the opinion of highly qualified and competent paid officers, may be a means of the greatest public economy, whilst otherwise it may aggravate enormously the wastefulness of ignorance. ”

“ On looking over the Returns for this healthy place, Hastings, and comparing the death-rate of children under five years of age of the higher classes and the visitors, with those of the wage-classes, we see that the deaths of children of the well-to-do are 3.41 to total deaths, whilst the death-rate of children under five years of the wage-classes is as much as 38.72 of the total deaths, and of the children of the fishermen about the same. ”