We have already alluded to the physical deterioration as well
 of the children and young-persons as of the women, whom machinery, first
 directly in the factories that shoot up on its basis, and then indirectly
 in all the remaining branches of industry, subjects to the exploitation
 of capital. In this place, therefore, we dwell only on one point, the enormous
 mortality, during the first few years of their life, of the children of
 the operatives. In sixteen of the registration districts into which England
 is divided, there are, for every 100,000 children alive under the age of
 one year, only 9,000 deaths in a year on an average (in one district only
 7,047); in 24 districts the deaths are over 10,000, but under 11,000; in
 39 districts, over 11,000, but under 12,000; in 48 districts over 12,000,
 but under 13,000; in 22 districts over 20,000; in 25 districts over 21,000;
 in 17 over 22,000; in 11 over 23,000; in Hoo, Wolverhampton, Ashton-under-Lyne,
 and Preston, over 24,000; in Nottingham, Stockport, and Bradford, over
 25,000; in Wisbeach, 16,000; and in Manchester, 26,125. [45] As was shown by an official medical inquiry in the year 1861, the high death-rates are, apart from local causes, principally due to the employment
 of the mothers away from their homes, and to the neglect and maltreatment, consequent on her absence, such as, amongst others, insufficient nourishment,
 unsuitable food, and dosing with opiates; besides this, there arises an
 unnatural estrangement between mother and child, and as a consequence intentional
 starving and poisoning of the children. [46] In those agricultural districts, “where a minimum in the employment of women exists,
 the death-rate is on the other hand 376very low.” [47] The Inquiry Commission of 1861 led, however, to the unexpected result, that in some purely agricultural districts bordering on the North Sea,
 the death-rate of children under one year old almost equalled that of the
 worst factory districts. Dr. Julian Hunter was therefore commissioned to
 investigate this phenomenon on the spot. His report is incorporated with
 the “Sixth Report on Public Health.” [48] Up to that
 time it was supposed, that the children were decimated by malaria, and
 other diseases peculiar to low-lying and marshy districts. But the inquiry
 showed the very opposite, namely, that the same cause which drove away
 malaria, the conversion of the land, from a morass in winter and a scanty
 pasture in summer, into fruitful corn land, created the exceptional death-rate
 of the infants. [49] The 70 medical men, whom Dr. Hunter examined in that district, were “wonderfully in accord” on this point.
 In fact, the revolution in the mode of cultivation had led to the introduction
 of the industrial system.