DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0214
198 INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL HISTORY.
counsels prevail in our time. So again sanitary science has greatly
contributed to economy in human energy. We cannot escape the
cost of nonage, we cannot obviate the certainty of ultimate decay;
but we may greatly prolong the period of full activity, and by
implication of economical utility. Two centuries ago the deaths
in London, chiefly by infectious diseases, were greatly in excess of
the births, sometimes, during periods of special unhealthinessr
were double the number. At present the average death-rate by
the thousand is not half what it was at the time of the second
Revolution. During this time the waste was chiefly of child life,
where the loss is total. But it was very considerable in adult life,
where it is real but partial. Even at the present time the skill
of man is unable to obviate the whole of this waste. But it has
been reduced within more manageable limits. There is a waste
of this kind on which I must comment. It is the maintenance
of those who cannot possibly become industrial agents at all, or
cannot recover the industrial capacity which they have lost-
Such are congenital idiots, incurable lunatics, and the entirely
disabled destitute. But here, when the economist shows that
their existence is sheer waste, the moralist and the statesman
rightly assert that they shall be, and ought to be, a charge on
society, because humanity is better than economy, and public or
private charity should not be entirely sacrificed to public or
private thrift.
In those mechanical appliances which are substitutes for
human labour, friction is waste. Now the victory of mechanical
science over friction cannot by the nature of things ever be com-
plete. The most carefully adjusted, and the most cautiously
protected machinery will wear, though the wear may be so infini-
tesimal that the efficiency of the mechanism may be very pro-
longed. Certain buildings, especially those which are buried in
the earth, are very enduring. The Roman forum, and the low-
lying ground, known still as the Velabrum of Rome, are still
drained by the cloaca, which was constructed in prehistoric times,
and probably will be drained by the same agency in the most
distant future. But other works of human skill have a far
brieser industrial existence. Machinery wears out by natural
causes. It is superseded by improvements, and the wear as well
counsels prevail in our time. So again sanitary science has greatly
contributed to economy in human energy. We cannot escape the
cost of nonage, we cannot obviate the certainty of ultimate decay;
but we may greatly prolong the period of full activity, and by
implication of economical utility. Two centuries ago the deaths
in London, chiefly by infectious diseases, were greatly in excess of
the births, sometimes, during periods of special unhealthinessr
were double the number. At present the average death-rate by
the thousand is not half what it was at the time of the second
Revolution. During this time the waste was chiefly of child life,
where the loss is total. But it was very considerable in adult life,
where it is real but partial. Even at the present time the skill
of man is unable to obviate the whole of this waste. But it has
been reduced within more manageable limits. There is a waste
of this kind on which I must comment. It is the maintenance
of those who cannot possibly become industrial agents at all, or
cannot recover the industrial capacity which they have lost-
Such are congenital idiots, incurable lunatics, and the entirely
disabled destitute. But here, when the economist shows that
their existence is sheer waste, the moralist and the statesman
rightly assert that they shall be, and ought to be, a charge on
society, because humanity is better than economy, and public or
private charity should not be entirely sacrificed to public or
private thrift.
In those mechanical appliances which are substitutes for
human labour, friction is waste. Now the victory of mechanical
science over friction cannot by the nature of things ever be com-
plete. The most carefully adjusted, and the most cautiously
protected machinery will wear, though the wear may be so infini-
tesimal that the efficiency of the mechanism may be very pro-
longed. Certain buildings, especially those which are buried in
the earth, are very enduring. The Roman forum, and the low-
lying ground, known still as the Velabrum of Rome, are still
drained by the cloaca, which was constructed in prehistoric times,
and probably will be drained by the same agency in the most
distant future. But other works of human skill have a far
brieser industrial existence. Machinery wears out by natural
causes. It is superseded by improvements, and the wear as well