The Express.
London, England, 1848-01-20 00:00:00

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chose two districts similar in extent and popnlation,;
We found that in the northern district, where there
had been in an average year but nine wee of homi-
cide with felonious intent, the proportion of persons
ejected was to the total dumber of holdings about one
in every sixty-six ; whereas, in the corresponding
region of the south the cases of murder
were thirty-eight, and the proportion of defen-
dants in ejectment about one in every twenty-three.
Such results of an examination into the condition of
two districts, each of which contains more than a
million of inhabitants (or an eighth of the entire
population of the kingdom), seemed to us, we own,
pregnant with instruction. Nor did they lose any-
thing of their value, because we endeavoured
to combine with them proofs equally simple and
direct, of the• fallacy of the current notion, that
signal crimes of an agrarian character are caused
by a certain distribution of the soil; and that,
in proportion as the number of tenants are in-
creased, habits of disorder and violence neces-
sarily increase also. To expose this error, we gave
in our tables of comparison the number of agricul-
tural tenements, as well as the number of persons
evicted, and the number of violent deaths. NI ithont,
in fact, these three figures iu each county and dis-
trict, it would obviously be impossible to measure ac-
curately the disturbing and distracting influence, or
its result. Shortly the totals may be reproduced
thus :

NORTHIOCI Dunrincr, consisting of the counties of Damp], Down,
Londonderry, and Monsnhan.

PopulaticeL 1 I
_ 2444 9 Tenements.eTenements.Ejected. Murders.
1044510 I 171.314

Sonatina Dirroicr, conedating of the counties of Clam
and 'Tipperary.

1,003,3a3 I 114,
1104 I 3031 I as

Fault has, however, been found with this compa-
rison. A correspondent, whose judgment we respect,
has misconceived its nature as well as its aim ; and,
'lest others should be misled by the like misconcep-
tions, for want of a little explanation, we make too
apology for recurring briefly to the subject.
It is said, the average number of holdings in the
two contrasted districts is fallacious, because it is
made up of the average numbers for several counties ;
and eve*hese prove nothing conclusively, because
they furnish no means of judging what class of tene-
ments predominates in each, and out of what con-
stituent elements those totals are made up. With-
out knowing the proportion of the various
classes of holdings in each county, we cannot tell
but that the total average in the disturbed district
is made up of a very few extensive farms, and a vast
number of small ones, and although the gross num-
bers in the tranquil counties of Ulster be greater,
and the average size apparenUy leas, that there
prevails there, in fact, a more equable distribution of
the soil ; and, while there are, perhaps, fewer grazing
farms of many hundred acres, there is nothing re-
sembling that small cottier class, or the number of
very small holders, which prevails in Munster. Let
1111 see.

In the first place, then, let ns inquire what is the
proportion of tenements rated under 5/. in the books
of the poor-law unions. We take this as the lowest
claasifieation in counties which has been published
by authority ; but obviously it includes the entire of
those classes whose struggle for existence is the hardest;
and whom, by wholesale, the theory we are combatting
would deprive of all share in the occupation of
land. These unfortunates are, d priori, assumed to
be in Ireland the dangerous classes. Get rid of them
and all will go well. Consolidate their little farms
and gardens intp great tracts to be let to capitalists
(if you can get capitalists to take and to keep them),
and let these ex-tenants turn day labourers for money
wages, if they can get them, and if they cannot
let them go to the workhouse. But to allow
any great number of them to retain their small
holdings is, we are assured, only to perpetuate misery
and crime. And then there is wont to follow an ex-
clamation half sectarian, half statistical—of how much
better all things are managed in Ulster ! But what
say the figures ? By the subjoined table it will be
found these Si. tenements constitute almost the same
identical proportion of the entire holdings in each of
the districts under discussion ; and, what is still more
conclusive against all the objections to the fairness of
the averages above given, that in both they constitute
above one-half of the whole. Nor is this all. It will
be found, that adding to those under 51. all five. 51.
to 10!., the proportion which the aggregate bears to
the entire number of holdings in the southern district
is tw thirds, while in the northern district it is three-

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