tricts, instead of parishes and hundreds; but this would have the effect of rendering them useless for comparison with the four former decennial periods; and of extending to them all the evils of merging in larger boundaries the more marked characteristics of the different town and country districts. True it is also, that the Registrar-General might calculate from the population ab stracts, and insert in his Report the population of each county or district for which he gives separate returns of marriages, births, and deaths. This, which is not done at present-though in the volume just published he has in some degree supplied its place by some very interesting tables as to the proportion of marriages, births, and deaths, to the population of each place, evidently the result of a very laborious and careful calculation-would still leave much unaccomplished. Upon all the other interesting questions on which the Census returns furnish materials for reasoning and comparison-as to the effect which immigration, house accommodation, the varying proportions in different districts of ages, or of the two sexes, and the distribution of occupations have upon the results shown by the civil registry of births and deaths-the powers of blending together and applying to the same districts the materials furnished by the two Books would still be wanting.

Our remedy would be simple and immediate. We would not attempt to remodel the divisions made under the authority of the Registry act-divisions which may be, and no doubt are, very conveniently arranged, so as to admit of the personal superintendence of those who are set over them. But we would not allow these divisions to regulate the local distribution of the births, deaths, and marriages, in the returns sent in by the superintendentregistrars. It is quite evident that, upon each occasion on which a birth is registered, it would be as easy to insert it under its proper parochial division, as under that merely of the Registrar's district. We believe, however, that on enquiry it will be found, that even at present every birth, death, or marriage, is (for the convenience of making out his accounts against the_different parishes) actually inserted in the first instance by the Registrar under the head of the respective parishes, and even townships; and that, in order to send them up to the central office in London, he has to combine them into the general registration district a combination which is the cause of all the mischiefs of which we have been complaining. Be this as it may, however, we would have the Registrars required to enter, and to send up to London, every birth, death, or marriage, under the f the parish in which it occurs; it would then be in

of the Registrar-General to arrange them into the ognized subdivisions of England, whether counties,

large towns, or collections of rural parishes, and to avoid all the anomalies of the present system.

We are the more anxious to have this crying defect in the system of registration remedied, because we should have otherwise only to express satisfaction, and to give credit for the degree of perfection to which so complicated a machinery has actually attained in the short time that has elapsed since its first institution. The late Mr Lister, in whom the public have to regret the early loss of a most intelligent, conscientious, and industrious public officer, and his friends that of an amiable and highly-gifted companion, deserved great credit for the promptitude and skill with which he made the information sent in to him available for a variety of interesting purposes. He was the first to suggest that a correct return of the number of those signing the marriage register with a mark, might give a good idea of the state of education in the different counties; and each year's Report has tended to confirm the value and correctness of this test. To him also we owe the tables exhibiting the proportion of early marriages (under twenty-one) in the different counties. The present Registrar-General has continued the latter, which becomes more and more valuable upon each opportunity of comparison thus afforded; and has in this year, for the first time, given some very curious comparative statements of the proportionate births, deaths, and marriages to the population—as perfect and complete as the present system of registration would admit.

Before we dismiss the column of Area,' we may mention, as a curious fact therewith connected, that the five largest commercial towns in England, viz. the Metropolis, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Leeds, with their suburbs, contain within an area of 96,000 acres―or as nearly as possible the area of Rutlandshire-a population equal to the total numbers of the following seventeen purely agricultural_counties-Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Suffolk, Sussex, Berkshire, Buckingham, Cambridge, Cumberland, Hertford, North Riding of Yorkshire, East Riding of Yorkshire, Dorset, Rutland, Hereford, Oxford, Westmoreland, and Northampton; with all the country towns within them-counties which occupy an area of more than 10,000,000 of acres, or about a third of the whole extent of England; further, that the population of the same five towns is equal to that of the whole of Scotland, with its 19,000,000

acres.

The information regarding Inhabited Houses' furnishes some curious details, of which the general result is satisfactory; as showing that, great as is the increase of the population in the

last ten years, the increase in inhabited houses has been still greater; so that the larger population may be supposed to be better lodged than was the portion that was numbered in 1831.

It appears from a comparative table furnished by the Commissioners, (Preface, p. 6,) that the actual increase in the number of houses is two per cent greater than that of the population; and even in places like Leeds and Manchester, where the manufacturing population is supposed to be particularly crowded, the number of houses has increased in a greater ratio than the population-namely, in Leeds, to an extent of 24 per cent against 23 per cent in the numbers; and in Manchester, 36 per cent, with an increase of 30 per cent in the inhabitants. Liverpool, notorious for its bad house accommodation, is among the few exceptions to this gratifying result. There, although the increase of numbers is nearly 40 per cent, the houses are only 24 per cent more than in 1831-showing that, instead of an improvement, there has been a positive deterioration in the condition of the labouring poor; that is, of the only portion of the inhabitants who are liable to any considerable fluctuation in such matters. This latter is also a town in which, though the apparent increase in the population within the last ten years, from immigration and other causes, has been, as we have already stated, nearly 40 per cent, there is, in fact, at present no natural increase—that is, no excess of births over deaths --but a positive decrease; in as much as the registered births, in the year ending about the period in 1841 that the Census was taken, amounted to 7435, while the registered deaths were 8119.

We shall have more to say afterwards on this mode of testing the actual increase of the population in large towns. We only notice here these facts, as connected with Liverpool, because they form an apt commentary on the state of house accommodation in that town.

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With these general remarks on the two columns which precede the return of the number of Persons,' we now proceed to the larger and more important question-of the number of the population, the extent and local distribution of its increase, and the causes which may have operated to promote it.

In order to discuss this, we shall have to make use of all the heads of information contained in the remaining columns-more particularly that, which has never before been furnished, as to place of birth, together with the important particulars supplied by the age abstracts. Indeed, it is from giving too little weight to these disturbing causes, and from confining himself too completely to a comparison of numbers at different periods, that the

candid Statistical enquirer has been himself deceived; while he who arranges figures for party purposes has been enabled to

deceive others.

So deceptive, in fact, may such statements be made, that he who merely wishes to support a theory may, without at all falsifying returns, make out a good primâ facie statement in favour of almost any views he may wish to advance: it is only by a careful consideration of all the different facts which bear upon the intricate question of the rate of increase in different localities, that a true conclusion can be arrived at.

The rate of increase of the population of England appears, by the returns before us, to have been, in the ten years ending 1841, 14.5 per cent; whereas, in the ten years that preceded the Census of 1831, it had been 16 per cent-showing an apparent diminution of the rate of increase to the extent of 1.5 per cent.

In explanation of this apparent difference, however, the following remarks of the Commissioners should be duly weighed, before we come to the conclusion that there has really been any diminution in the rate of progression.

After noticing the difference to which we have alluded, they proceed thus:

We have thought it our duty to enquire, whether this arises from a difference between the excess of births over deaths in the latter of these two periods, or from some cause quite unconnected with the statistics of vitality. As one very obvious cause for an increased or diminished rate of increase of the population, would be found in the greater or less extension of emigration, we directed our enquiry to the returns on this subject. The additional population which would be required, in order to make the ratio of increase on the present occasion equal to that of the former decennial period, would be 208,998, being 1 per cent on the total population of 1831; and from returns which have been furnished from the Emigration Board, it appears that the total excess of emigration, in the ten years ending 1841, compared with the ten years ending 1831, may be estimated at 282,322.

The above excess in the numbers that emigrated, in the period end. ing 1841, will not only supply the 1 per cent which appears in our returns to be deficient, in order to make the rate of increase equal to that of the former decennial period, but would actually raise it nearly a half per cent above that of 1831. When it is considered, that though the ages of parties emigrating are not returned, it is notorious that the greater part consist of persons in the prime of life-a class from which there would probably be a great excess of births over deaths-there can remain no doubt that the multiplication of numbers in England, by the excess of births over deaths, has continued at an undiminished, if not an increased rate, in the last ten years.'

It may be mentioned, in passing, that the diminished rate of increase is more remarkable in Scotland, and still more so in † F

VOL. LXXX, NO, CLXI.

Ireland; but the greater part of our present remarks must not be understood to apply to either of the latter countries. In Scotland, there is not the same means of comparing the relative numbers of births and deaths as are now provided by the new registration system in England; and before that, by the parish register abstracts, which afforded an approximation, though only an approximation, to the same results. It is therefore not easy, in Scotland, to make the necessary estimates as to the difference between what may be called the natural increase, and the increase shown by these returns. In Ireland, on the other hand, there are so many political considerations, which would start up to account for some of the sad results shown by the very compre→ hensive Report of the Irish Census Commissioners, that, if we entered into details, we could hardly avoid making this (what it was not intended to be) an article of a political character. We have, therefore, thought it better at present to confine our remarks to the results as affecting England.

Before, however, considering the causes, and the local distri bution in various degrees, of this addition to the population, let us pause for a moment to examine some of the consequences, as affecting the whole of the United Kingdom, which we might expect to result from an increase of numbers, so rapid and so steadily continued. For this purpose, we shall be sufficiently accurate, if we consider the number of inhabitants of the United Kingdom, at the time we are writing, as greater by one-third than that existing in 1821, and by one-sixth than that of 1831.

And, first, with respect to the Revenue, or, to use a word so familiar and personally interesting, that it comes home to the heart of every adult male, except paupers and footmen-we mean the Taxes--what ought to be the effect upon all of us who pay, of so great an increase of the numbers by whom the payment has to be made? It will not be denied, that supposing only the same amount of revenue to be now required for the public service as in the two former periods to which we have alluded, that amount ought now to be collected with one-third less of suffering, of inconvenience, and of cost to each individual, than in 1821, and one-sixth less than in 1831; or, in other words, that the addition to the price of every article of consumption, which is the subject of an indirect tax, might be diminished in the respective proportions of one-third and one-sixth; while the actual descent of the tax-gatherer's hand into the pockets of those unfortunate individuals who are honoured by a more intimate and direct connexion with him, might be, in the same proportions, less deep and less searching. It is evident that such a general relief, or a still greater partial diminution, would or

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