The Express.
London, England, 1851-01-01 00:00:00

The decrease in the number of farms in 1848

compared with the previous year is stated to have
been 71,137. The decrease in 1849, as compared with
1848, is computed at 46,041. This change is chiefly
observable in the holdings between five and fiatecn
acres ; those tetwt en fifteen and thirty appear to have
decreased, though not in the same proportion ; and
the number of cottier tenements are represented as
remaining nearly as numerous as before.
The inferences which are suggested in the com-
mentary of Captain Laltecit on these posi-
tive-looking facts, tend to create an impres-
sion that the system of rural depopulation has rather
been checked than otherwise since the epoch of the
famine. The instances of what is called "consolida-
tion " are absolutely fewer in 1849 than in 1848; and
there are almost as many labourers' cabins as there
need to be. But a little reflection will suffice to con-

vince us that is regards the former the comparison to
have any practical meaning must be one of relative
proportions, not of nominal sums. If ten peasant
homesteads were levelled to the ground in a given
parish in 1847, and six others in the following year,
the spirit of demolition and extirpation must have
been in reality more active in the second year than in
the first, although the objects of its economic aversion
were less. And as for the cottier tenement.,
unless we had some precise information in dis-
proof we could hardly refuse belief to the
united testimony of all eye-witnesses worthy of
credit, that the work of up-rooting and casting forth
as weeds thou who once lived partly by their labour
and partly by the produce of their patch of ground—
has been unceasingly and unsparingly pursued
throughout a great portion of the kingdom. We
don't deny the arithmetic accuracy of the statement
before us, but we wholly dispute the meaning it pro-
fesses to convey. Thousands of labourers with
their families have, during the period in question,
cleared from the estates whereupon they were
born,and their vulgar dwellings—what the theorising
improvers are wont tomtit" eye-sores"—got rid of sum-
marily. Few of these people have had the means of
emigrating, and few who survived the days of pesti-
lence remain in the union workhouse.. Where are
they then? In daily inereasieg clusters in the su-
burbs of the [owes and in the rapidly extending
villages. There, congregated in manes, far more
helpless, and with far less chance of employment for
hire, they struggle to eke out existence. Their new
huts and gardens are jotted down in the statistic
note-book of the police, and the calculating machine
in the government office finding 100 cabins less in
three-fourths of the district, and 99 more in the other
fourth, where the market town is situated, sagaciously
sets out both in his account by double entry, and
supplies his chief with circumstantial warrant for the
blind conclusion that " in the cottier clue the num-
bers were the same in 1849 as in 1848 in many coun-
ties, and in other counties the reduction was incon-
siderable."
This is but one instance of the worthless inductions
that the unscientific use, or rather abuse of what are
called statistics, is apt to lead to. In point of fact, no
species of inquiry needs more trained skill and more
circumspect wisdom. None assuredly demands more
undivided, undistracted, sad unprejudiced attention.
To fling the task to an already fully occupied man,
however able and well disposed, is to trifle with the
subject, and to lose the opportunity of effecting any
substantial good.

THE CICICKEST VOYAGE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC.

—The last trip of the Royal Mail steam-ship Asia was the
quickut one ever made between New York and Liverpool.
Her ran of last Inakiller to the Hervey, on whist oonaion
she steamed put the Rock Light-house at midnight on the
Saturday, had previously stood unrivalled, being 1 hour and
20 minutes lets than the finest pump of the United Stela
mail-steamer Atlantic; but the Asia has now beaten even
herself, filly justifying her claim to be couidered the
fleetest *listing MKS steamship. From New York on the
18th inst. she cleared precisely at midday, bat shortly
afterwards stopped her en ins, to repair damage received by
her wheels daring a eollialoa with the wharf. Fifty-five
minutes were than lost; and she finally started on her
voyage shortly behest two p.m. During her subsequent
pelage alto experieseed variable weather, with frequent
snug brume from the westward, and on Friday, at 10 p.m.
cede Cape Clear, having steamed from lead to land la lift
mere thee Was days. Holyhead was passed, unobserved by
W marine telegraph, at 4 pais on Saturday, and at half.
past 9 Vele* bar gone saluted the town, inciting general
siarprim and =Lund gretillisation as regards the celerity of
M „ Oa two days she nanaed a distance seldom
hitherto in the units of omen steaming ; funnies
en the 25th, 260 and 27th instant respectively 328, 321,
and 300 aides. her passage, reckoned aceordieg to mean
time, and deducting 45 minutes lost off New York repairing
Boats, may, be recorded as 10 days 4 hours and 6 mutates,
or 2 hours and Si minutes less than her fastest simmer pu-
rge, 4 hours and 15 minutes lees than the United States
mail rumen' fasted passage outward, std about 6 hewn
and 20 minutes Ism than the remarkable Ammar ran of the
Pectic out to New York.