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. lxxii. The following table of the rate of increase of population is interesting, as showing at a glance the counties where the chief increase has been. To understand the causes of these diffe- POPULATION of each COUNTY in ENGLAND and WALES, as enumerated at each Census from 1801 to 1851, inclusive; also Increase of Population per cent. in the Another test of the different rate of increase in towns without one leading branch of manufactures, and others which possess one, is to borrow from the tables the relative populations of some of our chief commercial towns at the opening of this century to the present time, and contrast them with others taken at random from the same, or neighbouring districts. 1801. 29,794 63,434 Coverham 53,162 14,848 45,755 22,161 77,653 25,552 29,826 22,300 112,300 70,409 31,065 7,991 39,757 14,300 8,743 27,698 1801. 241 1,105 285 492 587 427 168 2,259 1,302 409 After contemplating these doublings and quadruplings, take the soberer progress, sometimes no progress at all, of a list of market towns in the North Riding of Yorkshire. 1,047 407 2,430 682 1851. 149,543 149,257 172,270 46,130 135,310 1,006 655 300 50,670 258,236 63,287 87,280 70,143 452,158 186,986 94,470 16,796 98,013 72,136 29,648 91,423 1851. 285 1,273 282 667 845 554 271 2,892 1,635 553 1,044 2,695 1,221 326 Parish includes a wider range than the Parliamentary or Municipal limits. The parish estimate best shows the manufacturing increase; thus, the population of Bradford within the Parliamentary limits is 103,778, and of Halifax, 33,582. NO. LXXXIII.-N.S. D 6 These great folios consist, as we have said, of population papers, lists of names, and the figures belonging to them; but a running comment of notes down each page accounting for anomalies, or anything out of the usual course of increase in different places, throws considerable light on the real condition of each district; and the state of activity or depression of its inhabitants. Every decrease between the present and the last Census has to be accounted for in some way or other, and we can trace from the causes given, vastly greater energy in one race of the population than another. Perhaps in the people of Yorkshire this energy and vigilant care of their proper interests is most apparent: for instance, it is well known that agricultural wages are at least a third higher in Yorkshire than in Norfolk, Wiltshire, or Somersetshire; and that agricultural labourers in that county are, by comparison, in a most prosperous and wellfed condition; yet decrease of population is often attributed to agricultural depression' and migration to the towns. Emigration, too, is very frequent, and an air of bustle, movement, and change distinguishes every page. The mining districts, on the contrary, seem unfavourable to emigration, and the word does not occur in the notes on Durham, Cumberland, Northumberland, nor Westmoreland. Again, in Suffolk and Norfolk, where, especially in the latter county, the wages are at a universally low rate, there is little mention of emigration, except in the Hundreds bordering on the sea. This may be accounted for from want of energy in the people, and the known discouragement of emigration by the farmers, who apprehend a consequent rise in wages. In these counties, and again in Somersetshire and Wiltshire, we often read of cottages pulled down, or manufactures abandoned. Things are evidently not so flourishing as in the north; we can trace privation, depression, and want of spirit down many a column. But in these two last counties noted for their low wages, the idea of emigration has evidently taken root, and gained ground; their proximity to some great sea-ports being, of course, a stimulus. popu Wherever early marriages have caused an increase of lation, it is noted down as a peculiarity of that hamlet or village, while in some neighbouring parish we can trace a wiser system, for imprudent marriages seem often to be a mania confined to some narrow district, as if one instance had set the example to others. Mr. Cheshire's concluding table gives the amount of emigration from Great Britain, from 1843 to 1852 inclusive, from which we gather that the number of emigrants sailing from the United Kingdom in 1852 was, on an average, upwards of a thousand a day. Emigration from Great Britain and Ireland in each Year from 1843 to 1852, inclusive, and the destination of the Emigrants. In the Report's 'concluding remarks on the general results of the inquiry, it touches upon the close relation that exists in England, as opposed to the Continent, between the town and country population. A slight acquaintance with foreign countries shows the truth of the remark quoted from Mr. Laing, that in them the town and city population are much more apart and separate from the country people than with us. There the little fortified towns, with their walls and gates, stand as sharp and distinct as they did five hundred years ago- each city or town like a distinct island, or small nation, with its own ways of living, ideas, laws, and interests;' while the country population stands aloof, equally distinct in customs and costume, a people wholly separate from the towns, and comparatively little affected by their influences, either for good or evil. Upon our superiority in this respect the Report dwells as follows: "One of the moral effects of the increase of the people is an increase of their mental activity; as the aggregation in towns brings them oftener into combination and collision. The population of the towns is not so completely separated in England as it is in some other countries, from the population of the surrounding country: for the walls, gates, and castles which were destroyed in the civil wars, have never been rebuilt; and the population has outgrown the ancient limits; while stone lines of demarcation have never been drawn around the new centres of population. Tolls have been collected since a very early period in the market-places; but the system of octroi-involving the examination, by customs' officers, of every article entering within the precincts of the town-has never existed. The freemen in some of the towns enjoyed, anciently, exclusive privileges of trading; but the freedom could always be acquired by the payment of fines; and by the great measure of Municipal Reform (1835), every town has been thrown open to settlers from every quarter. At the same time, too, that the populations of the towns and of the country have become so equally balanced in number-ten millions against ten millions-the union between them has become, by the circumstance that has led to the increase of the towns, more intimate than it was before; for they are now connected together by innumerable relationships, as well as by the associations |
