CHADWICK, EDWIN. In 1854, the Earl of Carlisle, speaking of "the two measures which in our time seemed to him beyond any others to hare affected the Internal condition of the great body of tho people, the Amendment of the Poor-Law and Sanitary Reform," thus expressed himself with reference to Mr. Chadwick :—" He sincerely believed that the most efficient agent in originating and in producing those two great measures, and lit clearing away a host of prejudices which beset their early birth, was Mr. Chadwick ; end to one nr other of these measures he had ever since devoted his time his health, and his strength. It might undoubtedly be true that in taking up any great question or idea with enthusiasm, a certain portion of "positive. nen and precipitation might be inked up with it more than was' desirable ; but he trusted that our contemporaries *mild not refuse to those who had established great principles and introduced largo measure., some portion of that gratitude and honour which were sure to be awarded to them by an intelligent posterity." (hiansard, July14, 1854.) The "positiveness and precipitation " which were thus con ceded to a passing clamour, as a set-off' against contemporary gratitude, have belonged, more or less, to every man whose earnestness has had to struggle with official indifference and procrastinntion. Mr. Chadwick came from the, people. lie was not, as Burke said of himself, "swaddled, and nursed, and dandled into a legislator ;" and lie had to encounter the bitterest. hatred of men whose principle wan to du nothing till they were forced, and then to do as little as possible. Many of the sanitary measures also with which Mr. Chadwick was connected disturbed various large interests ; and he had thus the common fate of all sooial reformers who aro more anxious to enunciate uuwelcorno truths than careful to conciliate the supporters of profit able errors. Mr. Chadwick has retired from this contest with a distin guiahod recognition of his merits by tho legislature; and it is due to him to present a brief view of his remarkable career, as we believe it will be appreciated by "an intelligent posterity." Edwin Chadwick was born on tire 24th of January 1801, in the immediate vicinity of Manchester. Ills father was a manufacturer
there, but removed southward when hit son was about twelve years old. Edwin Chadwick looked to the bar as his procession; but his inquiring disposition led him to the investigation of many political and social questions which were out of the ordinary range of legal studies. That early connection with the newspaper press, which has extended the mental range of many a law.etudent, was to Mr. Chad wick one of the best means of education. lie possessed what is called a statistical bent—a quality not much cultivated thirty years ago, when tables and figures had little to do with political philosophy, and public writers and speakers made the strongest assertions upon the most vague generalities. Mr. Chadwick's compreheusive manner of viewing large questions under many various aspects was first exhibited in 1828, in a paper on 'Life Assurance,' published in 'The Westminster Review.' The principle which Mr. Chadwick maintained in this article was, that the old Northampton Tables, upon which most schemes of assurance were founded, represented ,the probabilities of life at too low a figure; for as the progress of had the general tendency to diminish the noxious circumstances by which the population of any locality was surrounded, so in any community in which these noxious circumstances were in course of diminution, human life must have a corresponding tendenoy to increase in value. The abstract question of the influence of all moral and physical improvement. upon health and tire duration of life, thus early considered by Mr. Chad wick, was the great problem which ho had practically to work out in many years' advocacy and organisation of remedial measures for social evils. In 1829 he wrote two papers in the ' London Review,' ono on ' Preventive Police,' the other on ' The Administration of Medical Charities In France.' The article on 'Preventive Police' attracted the notice of Mr. Bentham, and led to a friendship between the young writer and the venerable philosopher, which lasted till Mr. Bentham's death in July 1832.