The Press.
London, England, 1855-02-10 00:00:00

littraturt.

Thom's Irish Almanac and Official Directory
for 1850. Dublin : Thom and Sons.
THIS portly volume, besides furnishing a com-
plete directory to the county and city of
Dublin, and to the various Irish establish-
ments, contains the information given in our
best almanacs, with a copious peerage and
haronetage, army and navy lists, and a vast
amount of statistics of general utility. The
statistics of Ireland furnish a complete view
of tho material condition of that country as
compared with its state in times past ; and
some of the details aro so important as to
suggest a few remarks on the great changes
which Ireland has lately undergone.
Never perhaps did any country pass through
so great a social revolution in so short a space
of time as Ireland passed through in the
).ears between 1847 and 1851. Forming part
of the wealthiest, most cultivated, and most
civilised kingdom of the world, it was sud-
denly stricken with a famine of so grievous a
character as scarcely to find any parallel in
history. By the failure of the potato crop
many districts were reduced to total destitu-
tion, and were partially depopulated before
aid could reach the starving inhabitants.
Whole families died in lonely cottages, with
none to help them—men, women, and children
going abroad with the hope of obtaining food
expired by the wayside—the last rites of hn-
inanity were neglected, and the dead were left
unburied for rats to gnaw or to putrefy in the
air. The wail of anguish from the green island
resounded through Europe, and evens moved
the Sultan of Turkey to compassion. No
efforts of benevolence were sufficient to relieve
the distress. The entire people seemed
changed to a nation of paupers, and the heavy
duty was thrown on the Government of having
to feed starving millions. Distressing as the
accounts were which reached us, the full ex-
tent of the calamity was not known until the
population returns of 1851 were published.
Since the earliest authentic returns, the people
had been rapidly increasing. In 1652, in the
time of Cromwell, the population was supposed
to be only 850,000. In 1726, under the reign of
the first George, it had risen to 2,309,106. In
1792, previous to the war consequent on the
French revolution, it amounted to 4,088,226,
and neither the blood shed in the Irish rebel-
lion nor the recruits drawn fur the war checked
its increase. After the Union, in particular,
it rose rapidly. At the census in 1811 it
amounted to 5,937,850 ; in 1821 it was 0,801,827 ;
in 1831, 7,767,401 ; in 1841, 8,175,124 ; and
had the increase gone fairly on to 1851 the
number would have approached nine millions.
But the census returns of 1851 showed only
01551,070, or a positive decrease on the pre-
vious return of 1,623,114 souls. The growth
iu population of more than forty years was
thus lost in the season of famine and in the
rush of emigration which followed. The
small occupiers and peasants who had power
to leave their native land tied from it, as if it
were stricken by an irremovable curse. The
total loss to the population between 1847 and
1851 cannot be estimated at less than two
millions ; and a considerable majority of
these souls must certainly have perished
frpin starvation. Each of the four provinces
suffered a great decline ; in Connaught it
was most marked, and in Ulster the least
so. The decline in the former province
between 1841 and 1851 was from 1,418,859 to
1,010,211, and in the latter from 2,386,373
to 2,011,756. It is very remarkable—and
further illustrative of the extreme severity of
distress in the country districts—that eoinci
dent with this general decline, the numbers of
the people in every principal city and town of
Ireland increased. Thus in Dublin city the
4utnbem rose from 232,720 in 1841 to 258,361
in 1851; in Cork front 80,720 to 85,745 ; in Bel-
last from 9,308 to 100,300; and in Galway from
17,276 to 23,695. The increase in the houses
of these towns has also been considerable.
From • the rate nt which emigration has
kepi proccedipg since 1851, it is certain that
the. population must have suffered a still
further decrease to the present time. The.