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life, for there is an intimation in this Census Report very awful for them. Let them count up with increasing astonishment at every thousand, or ten thousand, the married couples, the children they are likely to produce, and calculate what is to become of them. Then let them turn to the threat in the Census. They really may well be terrified. Lamb, in his admirable quaint way, somewhere speaking of marriages, alluding to the happy man who prays to have his "quiver full" of children, humorously protests against having the said quiver shot out upon him. Has the Census speculator taken a serious hint from Lamb's quaint joke? Hear, bachelors, and maids, what a Census in progression prepares for you, unprepared as you may be for it!

"The great number of childless parents, of unmarried persons, of orphans, and of large families, particularly among the poor, sanctions the practice of adoption, and points out the propriety of distributing destitute orphans and other children-who are now kept at great expense by parishes, in workhouses, or by societies in large buildings-among the childless families, who would cherish the children with a sort of parental affection." Would they indeed? then, if so, Eusebius, you and I, and most people beside, know nothing of human nature. It is hard sometimes to keep up the heat of a true "parental affection," but a "sort of parental affection" is a sort of affection below zero. The passage doesn't look like wit, but can it be a serious proposal? It will certainly find a place among the Rejected Addresses, or among those curiosities of thought and invention which are said to be pigeonholed in the moon. This scheme will offer some good subjects for the pencil of Punch. The pauper Pater- familias, being his own relieving officer, walking unconcernedly with his eight or nine unprovided-fors hand-in-hand, and dropping them one by one, within unwelcoming doors,-or the reception by an aged spinster of a big lubberly boy, or an unweaned infantor the nervous bachelor in his quiet lodgings, disturbed by an instant demand upon his dormant affections by the entrance of a parish officer and

an overburthened parent, to deliver into his keeping twin babies and a wet-nurse.

As in No. I. of the Census, so in No. II. The great official Busybody rolls about his tub with a great deal of profitless industry. In this part, also, are maps and diagrams, playthings for little or for grown-up children who want idle amusement. The ages of married and unmarried, and of husbands and wives relatively, are thought worthy of laboured diagram and tables. "The degree of disparity (age of husband and wife) differs, and is greatest at the extreme age of either sex;" where else could it be? "The disparity of age has a wide range, and the returns show one instance in which a man of 30-35 is married to a woman 90-95, and four in which men of 95–100 are married to women of 45-50. In one instance it appears in the tables that a girl of 18 is married to a man of 100; but this is an error." An error indeed in the tables! Then why admitted? The worst of errors is, to have an error in statistics of matters of fact. But I doubt very much if it be an error, as, if one, it is not accounted for. I am, Eusebius, unwilling to spare the census-maker as to his error, because he lacks charity in respect of those "unprotected females," whose privilege it is and ought to be to tell little innocent fibs in very delicate matters. What business has this big Busybody to expose such harmless peccadilloes in the face of the world? He would drag them bodily unmercifully by the hair of their heads into light if he could, and did not mistrust the colour of it; to announce to the world that it is grey at 25: how pitiless he is! He publishes as a fact that 35,000 must have told monstrous fibs. Take, Eusebius, the ipsissima verba. "The conclusion appears to be inevitable that some 35,000 ladies, more or less, who have entered themselves in the second age, 20-40, really belong to the third age, 40-60, to which the body of delinquents are transferred in Table 7." Delinquents indeed! He is himself the great delinquent, for what is it to him, if they profess to know their own ages better than he can? Whereas his knowledge is a mere pretence made up of odious

figures that nobody can follow, and bound up after all in a "more or less." What has a statistician to do with a "more or less," and to pretend to matter of fact? But be takes upon him to read these 35,000 (though I verily believe they are as fabulous as the Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne) a lecture on the subject, thus, "Millions of women have returned their ages correctly. Thousands have allowed themselves to be called 20, or some age near it, which happens to be the age at which marriage is most commonly contracted in England, either because they were quite unconscious of the silent lapse of time (here he is caught fibbing himself, for he does not believe any such thing), or because their imaginations still lingered over the hours of that age; or because they chose foolishly to represent themselves younger than they really were, at the scandalous risk of bringing the statements of the whole of their countrywomen into discredit." "Scandalous risk" indeedhow gauche! here is a deficiency of manners and common sense too. He ought to know that all their countrywomen would step out in their defence and vouch for their veracity. He had better not be caught among them with that tale in his mouth. Helen of Troy was, say some overcurious people, near upon a hundred when the Greeks and Trojans fought their fatal fight about her; but the gallant writers of those days had the "Gentleman Pagans"" forbearance, and never said a word about it. Neither Homer nor the dramatists after him dared the insult upon her feminine honour. Although she caused the destruction of Troy, none called her a "delinquent," though in her modesty she gave herself a worse name, which out of reverence for the sex I will not put into English. Of all " unprotected females "-something of the kind was noticed before-Scotchwomen are the most unprotected; but let them find consolation in a spiteful longevity. "Scotchmen die in greater numbers than Scotchwomen, or they leave the women of Scotland at home when they cross the Tweed, as well as when they emigrate, and do not marry; or marry English wives. So that to 100 men at the

ages, 20-40, 40-60, 60-80, 80-100, the enumerators of 1851 found respectively 112, 117, 135, and 159 women in Scotland. This great disparity of the sexes, which pervades so many counties of Scotland, well deserves careful investigation, in connection with the law of marriage, the household manners, and the occupations of the people." Scotchmen leave their lasses behind them when they cross the Tweed!-a pretty story indeed. How should ill-mannered Census know that? Did Scotchmen walk into England with enumerators at their backs? I can't believe this, Eusebius; there is another "error" to rectify. I would rather think the statistics a little cooked in this matter, than that they have degenerated from the character given of them in the song, and in the loving nature of their own Bard, who "dearly loved the lasses, O!" and described them so delightfully, that Englishmen have longed to cross the Tweed to get a sight of them. Who were they but Scotchwomen of whom sang he who sang so well,

"There's nought but care on every han',
In every hour that passes, O;
What signifies the life of man,

Antwere not for the lasses, O!"? Be sure, Eusebius, it was the invention of some "rejected" enumerator, who, in spite for what was above his reach, maligned them by insinuation, as the fox in the fable did the grapes.

I must, I grieve to say, check this playful vein. Here I find very serious matter indeed. I find a sad charge against our great trade towns. One can almost imagine one sees a Moloch enthroned in each, and children sacrificed on his altar. This is a frightful account,-" Of 100,000 children born in Liverpool only 44,797 live to the age of 20, while in Surrey that age is attained by 70,885 out of the same number of children born. The probable lifetime is about 6 years in our unhealthiest towns, 52 years in Surrey, and other comparatively healthy parts. In Manchester, where the mortality is high, 100,000 annual births only sustain at the ages 20-40, a male population of 38,919; while in all England and Wales, where the mortality is now much lower, the same number of births produces a constant force of

61,215 men at that age, and at other ages similar disparities in the numbers living exist. Now, the mortality was not much less in all England formerly than it is now in Manchester, and the great diminution in the mortality of England evidently took place at such a period of the last and present centuries as left proportionally more survivors at the ages 20-40 in 1851 than at the corresponding ages in 1821, for the dangers and loss of life incurred by the generations born in the 40 years 1781-1801 were greater than those encountered by the generations born in the years 1811-31." In a note appended, is an extract from the Registrar - General's 7th Report. "In Manchester, 100,000 children born are reduced to about half that number (49,910) in six years." "The probable lifetime is about six years.' It behoves the legislature seriously to look to this fact. How can we expect God's blessing upon our boasted manufactures, or upon the wealth they have accumulated, if obtained at such a cost of human life? Does this massacre of childhood arise from the debility of overworked and perhaps too youthful parents, from overheated and ill-ventilated manufactories, or, as may not be unlikely, from the tasked work of young mothers, at a time when they should be chiefly occupied in the care of their offspring? From whatever state of things this great evil arises, it ought not to be, and surely the people as one man should look to the Legislature to provide proper sanitary and other means to check a national cruelty.

In the page of the Census from which I have made the above frightful extract, I find two curious notes as to the difficulty of ascertaining ages; they make one view with some distrust the dottings down of any and all the enumerators. "A statistician of eminence informed M. Moreau de Jennès, that after many persevering, but fruitless attempts, he abandoned in despair an inquiry having for its object to determine the ages of his wife and his cook."

"In 1841, the Census Commissioners allowed persons of the ages of 34 or 33 or 32 to call themselves 30, and so for other ages." This little indulgence is amusing; it either shows the

commissioner's despair to equal that of M. Moreau Jennès' friend the statistician, or that they had quite as much sense, and a little more charity, than the commissioners of 1851.

After all, Eusebius, there can be but little reliance on any accounts of people's ages; some falsify out of mere joke at the unexpected question, and some on purpose. I have heard of so many expedients resorted to, to avoid the impertinent questioning, that I give little faith to the Census. I know one instance of a cook, of at least 70, who, hearing from below her master questioned, laughing called out 18, so she was dotted down at 18; for her master

though some, not you, Eusebius, will be sorry to hear it was a clergyman, and had that grave politeness which distinguishes the Church of England rectors, vicars, and curates, and I hope archdeacons, deans, and bishops, not to contradict her; and this clergyman's conduct I would hold out for example to all enumerators and Census men. Another case I am acquainted with, where a lady, living in lodgings, communicating with an adjacent lodginghouse, as under one landlady, dodged in and out from one house to the other, so that she escaped giving in publicly her age; but being a conscientious person, such as those who weekly enclose omitted taxes to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, she followed the enumerator, and gave him a paper with her age on it. And here it occurs to me to confute the lecturing Census reporter, by a very natural suggestion, that if the ages put down by these 35,000" delinquents" are erroneous, how does he know but that very conscientious returns may have been since made-or will be made, and he should, from the example of tax-payers, have thought it probable-to the great "Quintus Flestrin" of a Registrar, who has not, and in all probability never will, take the trouble to look at them. Look at them or not, that is no fault of the 35,000 Fair Innocents; and if their conscientious returns are but so much waste paper, it is just what all the returns, and the whole costly Census will be very soon, at least as to this matter of age scrutiny. Some I know determined not to sleep at all that fatal night, that they might conscientiously escape; some say they

could not sleep, dreading what is vulgarly called "cold pig," at the hands of an intruding enumerator, because they were told the scrutiny would be very particular.

I am just come to a page (xxxviii) where the great Gulliver philosophises, and is proud of his philosophy. He envies astrologists and alchymists, and thinks his the only philosopher's stone, as he is quite sure that he has found the elixir of life. He boasts that the necromancer was nothing in comparison with him; for the necromancer only professed to bring up the dead, whereas he brings down with a flourish of his pen the living to the dead condition. He proposes himself as the only fortune teller, beating all to sticks the great Mistress Williams. He will tell you to an hour either when you were or ought to have been born; when you must die of spoonmeat, or live 6 years or upwards by natural suction; when you must marry or must live single, and as the very pith of his philosophy, that if you die young, you certainly will not live to be old. Almanac-makers with their conjectures are dead; but Gulliver's Census survives to tell all the world all that all the world ought to know; and with a pride quite beyond his usual modesty, he heads his important announcement of his possible doings thus, "Useful Applications of Real Knowledge." He promises to be the only and true intelligencer, the regulator of life and death, the marrier of children, the director of institutions, and the sole physician to "mitigate the calamities of premature death." Being assured, Eusebius, that you never met with, and probably never heard of, so wonderful a Gulliver, I extract for your use or amusement, according as you may wish to be deceived or laugh, (qui vult decepi decipiatur), this account which he gives of his marvellous self:

"Without entering into any further or profounder analysis, it is sufficiently evident that the returns open a new field of philosophical inquiry into a subject which has hitherto been treated lightly; and that the fortune-teller may yet share the glory or the shame of the astrologists and the alchymists, whose success was the evidence of undiscovered truth, as well as of their bold rapacity, and of mankind's cre

dulity. The passions and affections of men are governed by laws as certain as those of the heavenly bodies; but it is not true-as the phenomena are complicated -that the acts of particular individuals this notion we get rid of the vulgar error; can always be predicted; and in discarding but it is true that the acts of numbers of individuals can be predicted with sufficient certainty for practical purposes; for the marriage returns and these enumerations, in conjunction with the Life Table, furnish the means of calculating the chances that a man or woman, young or old, and unmarried, will marry before, in, or after a given year of age-of calculating the probability of remaining a spinster or a bachelor, or of being in the married state at any given age, the probability of bearing children, or of being a widower or a widow; and these calculations will serve, not merely to gratify idle curiosity, but to guide the course of men's lives, to regulate the population, to make provisions for children who marry, as well as for those who do not marry, and to direct the estab

lishment and conduct of social institutions which may mitigate the calamities of premature death."

Facts are not always facts, Eusebius, there are such things as facts with a difference-facts that a skilful player for mere sport sets up like ninepins, only to be knocked down by the hand of him, the judicious bowler, with a little bowl that he has in his hand, always with a bias, that comes unexpectedly round a corner of the ground, and lays every fact prostrate. Thus this sporting conjuror, having settled the fact that to every one hundred husbands who have married once in a stationary community there would be about 33 widowers, and to every 100 wives 40 widows, adroitly bowls down these facts, husbands and wives, widowers and widows; and sets up anew his ninepins of somewhat different proportions, saying, "Instead of 33 and 40, which are the results of the above hypothesis, the actual proportions are immediately altered by withdrawing from the ranks (that is, knockried those who have at one time been ing down by his bias ball) of the marwidowers or widows." This reminds me of an accountant who declared in my presence that he could make a debtor or creditor side appear as he pleased. But what is the use, Eusebius, of all this real or unreal knowledge, this game of ninepius, upon an imaginary popu

lation? Is it to amuse the world, which he says is younger than it should be-"the population is now younger than it would be by the natural standard" that he sets up these children's plays, these kind of Cheshire puzzles; these playthings of diagrams and mappings, on which to open his tee-totum? Madame de Stael thought the world was fifteen years of age, Census treats it with toys that would befit it in its infancy. I pointed out to you some of those childish diagrams in my last paper; such as told you how you and your neighbour were approaching each other, dreading a collision; of the silliness of Density and Proximity Games or Tables. In this part I find one scarcely less childisha map of England coloured over with hieroglyphics, as hats, hose, guns, boots, seem to denote the localities of trades, and other figures for occupations in mines, &c. Whether generally correct or not I care not to examine. I see in one instance an error, coal being marked where I should be extremely happy if any could be found. These sportive maps and diagrams must have cost a great deal of money; but also a great deal of money was to be earned in providing them, and Busybody must roll about his tub to show that as every 1000 of the population would have to pay £5, 4s. Od., they would not have to pay so much for absolutely nothing; therefore, next to nothing in utility, but a great deal in show, has been turned out of Busybody's tub as it went round. Thus, how everybody employs himself is discovered. I am only afraid of an after discovery and enumeration of the drones, as some economists please to call them, of society; whom, when such economists become both enumerators and governors in this our land, it may please them to drive out of the hive; but who are, and who are not drones-like the old epigram in troublesome times," which is the King, and which is the Pretender"-must be left for the statistics of some new commissioners, when universal suffrage and the ballot-box prevail. We may have a glimpse of the matter from the present Census, which, after enumerating the learned professions, gives this important fact to ruminate upon: "The three professions, with their allied and

subordinate members not differing greatly from the average of 37,000 to each, amount to 110,730, and their importance cannot be overrated; yet, in point of mere numbers, they would be outvoted by the tailors of the kingdom." This would verify the old saying, for, in elections for a parliament man, the "nine tailors" would certainly make him.

The three learned professions, as they are usually called, do not very much differ from each other in numbers. "The clergy of the Established Churches (18,587), lawyers (16,763), and the medical men (18,728), differ little from each other in numbers; and, in the aggregate, amount to 54,078." These are the guardians of the public morals, rights, and health. If the question of the Roman satirist be asked, Who shall watch the guardians?

the inquirer may derive some satisfaction in learning, as he may by turning to the lists, that there is a policeman to every three, and a few over. The policemen being 18,318 (a trifle less than the clergy), multiplied by three, they make 55,024. The overplus, 946, being possibly thought a proper additional force to keep a look-out upon the higher functionaries of divinity and law, archbishops, bishops, deans and their chapters, lord-chancellors, judges of the several courts, &c. &c.,- such jealous politicians as Sir B. Hall will scarcely think the extra number sullicient.

But here, Eusebius, this penman Gulliver of the Census seems have committed a numerical error

to

for a statistician strange. It has been seen that in the "Results and Observations" he has put down the clergy of the Established Churches at 18,587, whereas in the tabular list they stand at 17,621, a difference of 966; but I find in Class III. p. cxxviii., "Missionary, Scripture Reader, Itinerant Preacher, 965, one short of the number. But as

3 of these 965 are under 20 years of age, they cannot be Clergy of the Established Church; and if meant to make up the number, as in Report, 18,587, by deducting these 3, the amount will be short by 4. Then, again, these 965 do not seem to belong to the Established Church, as

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