ception by a series of diagrams,-circles of equal circumference, divided into hexagons of various sizes. Each six-sided figure represents the average amount of ground to a person, whereby the eye can see the close proximity we stand in to one another in the present day, compared to the vast amount of standing room in 1570, a space gradually diminishing from that date to this. From this we learn that in 1801 the people of England were on an average 153 yards asunder; in 1851, only 108 yards asunder. The mean distance between their houses in 1801 was 362 yards; in 1851, only 252 yards. In London the average proximity in 1801 was 21 yards; in 1851, only 14 yards. The extremes of density and separateness in the 624 districts of England and Wales are 185,751 persons to a square mile, and 18 to a square mile.

The conveniences of proximity, its effects on the intercourse of society, on the circulation of intelligence, and the general interests of civilization, need not be dwelt upon. Nor, with such safety-valves as America and Australia, need we give way to the nervous apprehensions of over-crowding which affected the politicians of fifty years ago, when each person had twice our present standing-room.

From these ideas of elbowing and crowding, it is curious to pass on to the notice of the numerous scattered islands which form part of the kingdom, and of their scanty populations. Five hundred islands have been numbered, but of these the census need take note of only one hundred and seventy-five, the rest being uninhabited. Without abandoning its formal details the Report assumes a poetical tone in treating of these romantic additions to our territories. It bestows attention on their solitudes, recapitulates their picturesque names, turns back to their history, dwells on their ecclesiastical greatness. Remote Iona, with its ruins and crosses, has honour done to it as the retreat of ancient piety and learning. A table of islands, ranged in order of populousness, varying from the peopled Channel Islands to the 1' of Inchcolm, transports us far away from towns and manufactures. Here the population least progresses, and many of these isles must be examples to Malthus' heart's content of a population dutifully submitting to his 'limits,' and kept by various checks' within his imaginary boundary of supply. Take S. Kilda, with its precarious harvests, its stationary population, and its infant deaths.

'S. Kilda is in the parish of Harris; and, away 70 miles from the mainland of the western Hebrides, it rises 1,500 feet above the waves. Rocks and inaccessible precipices surround it, except at one point on the north side, where there is a rocky bay; and another on the south-east side, where there is a landing-place which leads up to the village of S. Kilda, a quarter of a mile from the sea, on the sloping base of a steep hill. This is the

only inhabited place in S. Kilda and three other islands of the group, which are the resort of the seafowls, that, with fish and small patches of land, furnish employment and food for the inhabitants. The population has not before been stated, and has probably never before 1851 been officially enumerated. It was found to consist of 32 families, in 32 houses, and of 110 persons; of whom 48 were males, 62 were females. The 33 Gillies, 23 McDonalds, 20 McQuiens, 13 Fergusons, 9 McCrimons, 9 McKinnons, 2 Morrisons, and 1 McCleod, were all born on the island, except one woman, aged 35, a McDonald's wife, who was imported from Sutherland. The number of men between the ages of 20 and 60 is 25, and the number of women of the same age is one more, or 26; of the children under 20 there are 22 males, 30 females; one old man is above the age of 70, 6 women are more than 60 years of age, one has attained the age of 79.

'There are 19 married couples on the island; 2 widowers, 8 widows, 5 unmarried men, 5 unmarried women of the age of 20 and under 46. The men are all called "Farmers and Birdcatchers" in the Schedule: each "Farmer" occupying about 3 acres of land. Eight females are described as "Weaveress" in "wool." The mildness of the air covers the island with verdure; but the crops of bere and oats are often destroyed by terrific storms. The proprietor sends a yearly supply of meal to the island; without which the minister of Harris states that they would often be in want, notwithstanding the little crop, the sea-fowl eggs, and all the resources of the place. He refers to a tradition "that the population of the island has been stationary for 200 years;" sometimes falling below and sometimes exceeding 100 souls. "The great majority of the infants die of what they call the eight days' illness.' Several children were born in the last 12 months, but only 2 are living; and there have been 2 deaths during the last year." This differs from other information: for it is stated in the "Gazetteer of Scotland" that the number of adults in the island was at one time reduced to 4 by small-pox; and cholera in the first epidemic was fatal in this remote region. The dwellings of the poor people, who breathe the purest air of the sea and sky out of doors-in S. Kilda and in all the Western Isles-are left, through their ignorance, dirtier than the dens of wild auimals. There is a manse and a church; but no medical man-no clergyman -resident in the island.'-Census Report, pp. liv. lv.

Contrast this mortality with that of our largest and least healthy towns, and it is made clear how little the salubrity of a situation can do if men's habits indoors, and in the immediate neighbourhood of their dwellings, are impure. Because the inhabitants are more dirty than those of Manchester, though the one lies in smoke, every white garment streaked with it, every face grimed, and the other has the purest sky and air, yet the mortality of the healthful island is beyond all comparison the greatest. Indeed, these documents throughout prove how mistaken is the general notion of the ultra salubrity of country over town, and show how much depends on men themselves; and that in our climate all atmospheres are wholesome where due attention to cleanliness is observed, and none escape contagion where local impurities are suffered to exist and accumulate. It is important, now that half our population live in towns, that this should be made clear. Many of the prejudices

6

against towns, on the score of health, should now be obsolete ones. In many a manufacturing town the children, the object of so much sentimental compassion, are rosier, plumper, more vigorous, than in the ill-drained adjacent villages. That it was not always so we know, but it is fitting that the zeal and patriotism of commerce on this question should be acknowledged by public opinion, and the results of strenuous, though still inadequate exertions, owned. Compare the descriptions of Manchester towards the end of last century and its present state -though that is open enough to improvement-and we shall see how much has been done since that time for the health, comfort, and moral welfare of the population. The inventions and im'provements,' says Dr. Aikin, writing about 1795, ' of machines 'to shorten labour, have had surprising influence to extend our 'trade, and also to call in hands from all parts, especially children, for the cotton-mills. It is the wise plan of Providence 'that in this life there shall be no good without its attendant 'inconvenience. There are many which are too obvious in 'these cotton-mills and similar factories, which counteract that 'increase of population usually consequent on the improved facility of labour. In these, children of very tender age are 'employed, many of them collected from the workhouses in London and Westminster, and transported in crowds as appren'tices to masters resident many hundred miles distant, where they serve unknown, unprotected and forgotten by those to 'whose care nature or the laws had consigned them. These 'children are usually too long confined to work in close rooms, ' often during the whole night. The air they breathe, from the oil, &c., employed in the machinery, and other circumstances, is injurious; little attention is paid to their cleanliness, and frequent changes from a warm and dense to a cold and thin 'atmosphere, are predisposing causes to sickness and debility, and particularly to the epidemic fever which is so generally 'to be met with in these factories. It is also much to be questioned, if society does not receive detriment from the manner in which children are thus employed during their early years. They are not generally strong to labour, or capable of pur'suing any other branch of business when the term of their 'apprenticeship expires. The females are wholly uninstructed in sewing, knitting, and other domestic affairs, requisite to 'make them notable and frugal wives and mothers. This is a very great misfortune to them and the public, as is sadly proved by a comparison with the families of labourers in husbandry and those of manufacturers in general. In the former we meet with neatness, cleanliness, and comfort; in the latter, with filth, rags, and poverty, although their wages may be

6

'nearly double to those of the husbandman. It must be added, that the want of early religious instruction and example, and the numerous and indiscriminate association in these buildings, are very unfavourable to their future conduct in life.' Much of this evil, it cannot be denied, continues still, but it is so far modified and corrected, that neither in health nor yet in morals do our manufacturing towns present the unfavourable contrast they once did to our rural population. Witness, on the sanitary part of the question, the evidence of Mr. Porter on this very subject:

'It has been supposed that the general healthiness and duration of life among the people must be diminished by their being brought together in masses, and in particular it has been objected to the factory system of this country, that by this means it has added to the sum of human misery. To combat this opinion, it will be sufficient at present to bring forward the case of Manchester, where the increase of population has been great beyond all precedent, owing to the growth of its manufacturing industry. The population of the townships of Manchester and Salford, at each of the decennary enumerations, was found to be as follows:

The increase during the whole period of forty years being 258,514, or 272 per cent. upon the population of 1801. Much of this increase has arisen from continual immigration to a town of such growing manufacturing prosperity. The degree in which the natural condition of the population has been thereby affected, will be seen from the following figures, which exhibit the proportions living at different ages in Manchester and Salford, compared with the proportions in all England at the Census in 1841:

Under 5 years

Manchester
and Salford.

England.

5 and under 10 years

2,059

1,787

4

90 and upwards

10,000 10,000

stated from the parish registers, was 1 in 25; in 1770, 1 in 28. In 1811, The mortality of these townships in the middle of the last century, as when the population had already very greatly increased, the rate of mortality had sunk considerably, and in the ten years ending with 1830 was not more than 1 in 49; a low rate, if we take into the account the fact

that, in manufacturing towns, children are brought together in a much greater proportion than the average of the kingdom.'-Porter's Progress of the Nation, pp. 26, 27.

On the subject of territorial subdivisions, the Report plunges into an antiquarian disquisition, giving the history of every form of division to which, from earliest times, the country has been subjected. No doubt the variety of subdivisions- ecclesiastical, military, and civil ; fiscal and judicial; ancient and modern; municipal and parliamentary-presents many obstacles and difficulties in such a task as it records; but whether these obstacles are important enough to make it desirable to sweep away any of our ancient landmarks, is another question. The Report recommends a uniform sytem of territorial divisions. How far this would affect our present ecclesiastical divisions is not stated, or whether the object is only to define them more clearly, or materially to alter them. Though many anomalies 'and real practical evils may be freely acknowledged, we should watch the latter disposition with extreme jealousy, lest time-honoured boundaries, still possessing strong hold on the affections of the people, should be disturbed for the mere convenience of statisticians. The Report gives the following testimony to the willingness of the Clergy to aid their inquiries :—

'The task of obtaining accurately the population of these districts has been one of very great difficulty. Designed exclusively for spiritual purposes, their boundaries are quite ignored by the general public, and rarely known by any secular officers; while, in many cases, even the clergy themselves, unprovided with maps or plans, are uncertain as to the limits of their respective cures. Formed too, in many cases, without reference to any existing boundaries—often by imaginary lines which the progress of building speedily obliterates-and liable, as circumstances alter, to repeated reconstruction-it is sometimes almost impossible, with any confidence, to ascertain the real present limits of these districts. No labour, however, has been spared in order to overcome these obstacles and secure a trustworthy statement. The registrars, when apportioning their districts among the enumerators, were directed to procure as much information upon the boundaries of these new parishes, &c., as the incumbent might be able and willing to supply; and very important aid was, in this manner, readily afforded. Subsequently, the accounts of population which resulted from these inquiries were forwarded from the Census Office to the various incumbents for their inspection and revision; and very much of whatever accuracy distinguishes the present return is attributable to the courteous criticism which this correspondence procured from the clergy throughout the country. Still, in some few instances, after every effort had been made to obtain correct intelligence, it was found impossible to frame a statement which should be entirely satisfactory, and it has, therefore, been deemed advisable, in such cases, to insert merely the name of the district, without giving any particulars of population, rather than publish any unauthentic and unreliable account.'-Census Report, p. Ixxii.

The following table of the rate of increase of population is interesting, as showing at a glance the counties where the chief