from Dr. T. Y. Simon, of the city of Charleston, who is chairman of the Medical Board, that it shall continue to be urged upon the attention of that body every year until successful, unless death shall suspend his zeal and labours in behalf of such a measure.

The importance of a systematic and scientific registration universally receives the sanction and advocacy of the leading medical men of our country; but, unfortunately, its utility is not seen by the mere politician. An example is seen in the fact that the laws of Rhode Island and Kentucky are largely due to the efforts of Dr. J. Mauran, of Providence, and Dr. W. L. Sutton, of Georgetown, who are respectively the presidents of the medical societies of those states; while in Pennsylvania, the executive chief withheld his sanction to the Act after it had passed the legislature of that state, and it became a law only by a provision of their constitution, which makes an Act a law if not vetoed, with reasons for the governor's objections, prior to the tenth day of the next convening of the legislative body. In this case, that body manifested their approval of the enactment by confirming it with a handsome special appropriation from the state funds to put it into successful operation.

In Massachusetts, the law was obtained in compliance with petitions from the American Statistical Association, the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the State Medical Society. Their ten reports exhibit results quite analogous to those of England in many particulars.

The population of this state was in 1850 a little less than a million, being 994,514. The increase from 1840 was 256,814, being 3181 per cent. on the population of 1840. In the counties of Middlesex (which includes the city of Lowell,) and Suffolk, in which the city of Boston is located, the increase of population during the decade was over 50 per cent. on that of 1840; much of this is due to immigration. In 1830, only 1:58 per cent. of the population of the state was of foreign origin; in 1840, it arose to 4.72 per cent.; and in 1850, it amounted to 16:54 per cent., or one-sixth of the inhabitants.

During the three years 1849-1851 inclusive, there was an annual average of 1 birth to 36 inhabitants, according to the census of 1850; while during five years, 1839-1843, there was annually 1 birth in 31 inhabitants in England, 1 in 35 in France, and 1 in 26 in Prussia and Austria.

Of marriages, I perceive that in England about 8 per cent. of the males, and a little over 13 per cent. of the females, are under 21 years of age. In Massachusetts, at the time of marriage, only 1.66 per cent. of the males, and 24:40 per cent. of the females, are under

20 years of age; and of all marriages in that state, among the females, nearly three-fourths are under the age of 25 years. Taking the same periods of time as above for the births in the several localities, and we have an annual marriage to every 102 inhabitants of Massachusetts, and 1 to 130 in England, 1 to 123 in France and Austria, and 1 to 110 in Prussia.

The proportion of deaths to the population in Massachusetts is not far from 1 in 52.25, or 1.91 per cent. This rate is not equally distributed over the territory, but is severe in proportion to the density of population.

The Results of the Census of Great Britain in 1851, with a Description of the Machinery and Processes employed to obtain the Returns; also an Appendix of Tables of Reference. By EDWARD CHESHIRE, Assistant-Secretary.

[Abstract of a Paper read before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Hull, on Thursday, the 8th of September, 1853.]

THE author commenced by reciting the onerous duties of the Registrar General aud of his able assistants Dr. Farr and Mr. Horace Mann. The census returns extended, in manuscript, over some forty thousand volumes, and occupied the census department upwards of two years to reduce to the form in which the first portion of the census was published, viz., to the limits of three bulky folios. The objects of the census were explained, and the machinery employed to take it. Great Britain was apportioned into 38,740 enumeration districts, and to each of them a duly qualified enumerator was appointed. The author illustrated the extent of this army of enumerators, and the labour of engaging their services on the same day, by stating that it would take 10 hours to count them, at the rate of one a second, and that the army recently encamped at Chobham would not have sufficed to enumerate a fourth of the population of Great Britain. The boundaries of the enumeration districts, and the duties of the enumerators, were defined. The number of householders' schedules forwarded from the Census Office was 7,000,000, weighing 40 tons, or if the blank enumeration books and other forms were included, upwards of 52 tons. The processes employed to enumerate persons sleeping in barns, tents, and the open air, and in vessels, were severally explained: also the means by which the numbers of British subjects in foreign States were obtained. The precautions taken to secure accurate returns were recited; they involved the final process of a minute examination and totaling at the Census Office, of 20 millions of entries, contained on upwards of 14 millions of pages of the enumerators' books. The latter were nearly 39,000 in number. The boundaries of the fourteen registration divisions were traced, and the plan of publication of the census was explained. The whole of the statistics of any one of the divisions might be separately procured, and was accompanied by a map of the districts and counties of which it was comprised. The number of persons absent from Great Britain on the night of the 30th of March, 1851, was nearly 200,000:-viz., army, navy, and merchant service, 162,490; and British subjects resident and travelling in foreign countries, 33,775. The various causes of displacements of the population were recited and the general movement of the population on the occasion of the Great Exhibition was alluded to.* The number of visits to the Crystal Palace were 6,039,195,—and the number of persons who visited it were 2,000,000; nevertheless, the landing of only 65,233 aliens was reported in the year. The population of Great Britain in 1851 is subjoined:

* It is stated incidentally in the census, that in 1845 a million and a half of people on the Continent visited, in pilgrimage, the Holy Coat at Trèves.

The census illustrated this 21,000,000 of people by an allusion to the Great Exhibition. On one or two occasions 100,000 persons visited the Crystal Palace in a single day, consequently 211 days of such a living stream would represent the number of the British population. Another way of realizing 21,000,000 of people was arrived at by considering their numbers in relation to space: allowing a square yard to each person they would cover 7 square miles. The author supplied a further illustration, by stating that if all the people of Great Britain had to pass through London in procession, 4 abreast, and every facility was afforded for their free and uninterrupted passage for 12 hours daily, Sundays excepted, it would take nearly 3 months for the whole population of Great Britain to file through at quick march, four deep. The excess of females in Great Britain was 512,361, or as many as would have filled the Crystal Palace 5 times over. The proportion between the sexes was 100 males to every 105 females, a remarkable fact when it was considered that the births during the last 13 years had given the reversed proportion of 105 boys to 100 girls. The annexed table exhibits the population of Great Britain

at each census from 1801 to 1851 inclusive:

TABLE II.

Population of Great Britain at each Census from 1801 to 1851, inclusive.

The increase of population in the last half century was upwards of 10,000,000, and nearly equalled the increase in all preceding ages, notwithstanding that millions had emigrated in the interval. The increase still continued, but the rate of increase had declined, chiefly from accelerated emigration. At the rate of increase prevailing from 1801 to 1851, the population would double itself in 52 years. The author here quoted several paragraphs from the Census Report, in

which were discussed the relation of population to mean lifetime and to interval between generations; the effects of fertile marriages and of early marriages respectively; also the result of a change in the social condition of unmarried women; likewise the effect of migration and emigration, respectively, on population; the effect of an abundance of the necessaries of life, and, on the contrary, the result of famines, pestilences, and public calamities. The terms "family" and "occupier" were defined, and some remarks by Dr. Carus, on English dwellings, were cited. The English (says the Doctor) divide their edifices perpendicularly into houses, while on the Continent and in many parts of Scotland the edifices are divided horizontally into floors. The definition of a "house," adopted for the purposes of the census, was, "isolated dwellings or dwellings separated by party walls." The following table gives the number of houses in Great Britain in 1851:

About 4 per cent of the houses in Great Britain were unoccupied in 1851, and to every 131 houses inhabited or uninhabited there was one in course of erection. In England and Wales the number of persons to a house was 55; in Scotland 7.8, or about the same as in London; in Edinburgh and Glasgow the numbers were respectively 20-6 and 27.5. Subjoined is a table of the number of inhabited houses and families in Great Britain at each census, from 1801 to 1851, also of persons to a house, excluding the Islands in the British seas:—

TABLE IV.

Inhabited Houses and Families in Great Britain at each Census from 1801 to 1851, inclusive.

Note. This table does not include the islands in the British seas.

The number of inhabited houses had nearly doubled in the last half century, and upwards of two million new families had been founded. 67,609 families, taken at hazard, were analyzed into their constituent parts, and they gave some curious results. About 5 per cent. only of the families in Great Britain consisted of husband, wife, children, and servants, generally considered the requisites of domestic felicity.

The number of children at home in families varied considerably. Of the 41,916 families having man and wife at their head, 11,947 had no children at home; 8,570 had each one child at home; 7,376 had each two children at home; 5,611 had each three children at home; 4,027 had each four children at home; and so forth in a decreasing scale, until we come to 14 families having each ten children at home; 5 having each eleven children at home; and 1 having twelve children at home. These results applied to Great Britain generally indicated that 893 families had each ten children at home, 317 had each eleven, and 64 had each twelve children at home; nevertheless, the average number of children at home in families did not exceed two; thus showing, that however violent might be the fluctuations in a small number of observed facts, the average was not disturbed if the area of observation was sufficiently extended.

The annexed table gives the number of each class of public institutions in Great Britain in 1851, and the number of persons inhabiting them.

Of these 295,856 persons, 260,340 were inmates, and 35,516 officers and servants. The excess of males in the prisons arose from the fact that crime was four times as prevalent among males as among females.* The equality of the sexes in workhouses was remarkable. In the lunatic asylums there was a preponderance of females. The number of houseless classes, i. e. of persons sleeping in barns, tents, and the open air, on the night of the census, was 18,249. The following table gives the number of these classes, together with those sleeping in barges and vessels :—

* Vide Mr. Redgrave's valuable Criminal Tables.