The following table shows the average ages at which the deaths occurred of the fathers of the widows’ orphan children who are in receipt of relief in the following unions. The average includes the cases of all who died at whatever ages, whether above or below sixty:— ┌─────────────────────┬────────┬───────┬────────┬───────┬───────┬───────┐ │ Unions. │ Number │ │ Number │ │ │ │ │ │ of │ │ of │ │ │ │ │ │Husbands│ │Husbands│ │ │ │ │ │ dying │Average│ dying │Average│ │ │ │ │ under │Age at │ above │Age at │ Total │Average│ │ │ 60. │Death. │ 60. │Death. │Deaths.│ Age. │ ├─────────────────────┼────────┼───────┼────────┼───────┼───────┼───────┤ │Manchester │ 718│ 42│ 432│ 69│ 1150│ 52│ │Whitechapel │ 351│ 44│ 239│ 69│ 590│ 54│ │Bethnal Green │ 250│ 44│ 195│ 69│ 445│ 55│ │Strand │ 157│ 42│ 63│ 66│ 220│ 49│ │Oakham & Uppingham │ 136│ 45│ 118│ 71│ 257│ 57│ │Alston-with-Garrigill│ 69│ 45│ 20│ 66│ 89│ 50│ │Bath │ 66│ 38│ 1│ 60│ 67│ 39│ └─────────────────────┴────────┴───────┴────────┴───────┴───────┴───────┘ This premature widowhood and orphanage is the source of the most painful descriptions of pauperism—the most difficult to deal with; it is the source of a constant influx of the independent into the pauperised and permanently dependent classes. The widow, where there are children, generally remains a permanent charge; re-marriages amongst those who have children are very rare; in some unions they do not exceed one case in twenty or thirty. By the time the children are fit for labour and cease to require the parents’ attention, the mothers frequently become unfit for earning their own livelihood, or habituated to dependence, and without care to emerge from it. Even where the children are by good training and education fitted for productive industry, when they marry, the early familiarity with the parochial relief makes them improvident, and they fall back upon the poor’s rates on the lying-in of their wives, on their sickness, and for aid on every emergency. In every district the poor’s rolls form the pedigrees of generations of families thus pauperized. The total number of orphan children on account of whose destitution relief was given from the poor’s rates in the year ended Lady-day, 1840, was 112,000. The numbers of widows chargeable to the poor’s rates was in those unions at that period 43,000. The following abstract of the returns from the eight unions selected exhibit the proportions who become chargeable at different periods of the head of the family.