The Sun.
London, England, 1853-06-06 00:00:00

MIDDLESEX.—Metropolitan Buildings Act,
7 and 8 Vic., cap. 84.—Notice is Hereby Given, That the
Court of General Sessions of the Peace for this county has (subject to
the consent of her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the
Home Department, which has been applied to), divided the district
of St. Mary, Islington, into three districts, to be respectively called
the districts of East, West, and South Islington ; and that, if the con-
sent of the Home Office shall have been received meanwhile, the Court
will proceed, on Thursday, the 14th day of July next, to the ELEC-
TION of a SURVEYOR for each of such three districts; and that
each election will be subject to the Standing Orders of Courts as to
Districts and District Surveyors, and that no person will he admitted
a candidate unless duly qualified under the Act and such Standing
Orders ; and every candidate (who haenot already done so), must,
on or before Saturday, the 25th day of Jane inst., address to me,
in 'writing, a statement of his name, residence, age, and qualifi-
cations; and must also personally appear before the Committee
for gener3l purposes appointed by the Court at Twelve o'Clock
at Noon precisely, on Monday, the 27th day of June instant,
at the Sessiorts-house,:Cierkenwell-green, and produce to their
satisfaction evidence that he is of the full age of 30 years, and
a certificate from the Board of Examiners, appointed under the Act,
for their approval, and also such other testimonirls of character and
qualification as he may deem expedient, or the Committee may re-
quire ; and, if approved by the Committee, he will then be sanctioned
by them to be a candidate. It has been resolved by the Court that
the candidates for the said districts shall not be required to declare
themselves candidates for any one of such districts in particular, but
that each of the three successful candidates shall be at liberty to
select a district according to his standing on the poll.

C. HEATON ELLIS, Clerk of the Peace,
Sessions-house, Clerkenwell, June, 3, 1853.

NEW FEATURE IN LIFE ASSURANCE.

THE DEPOSIT and GENERAL LIFE
ASSURANCE COMPANY,

18, New Bridge-street, Blackfriars, London.
CAPITAL—ONZ HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS.
TRUSTEES.

The Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Drumlanrig, M.P., P.C.,
Comptroller of her Majesty's Household.
Sir Charles Price, Bart., 3, sing William-street, London.
Lieut.-General Sir W. IL Clayton. Bart, Gloucester-place, Portman-
square, and Marden-park, Surrey.

BESULTS: OF THE CZN
SUS or
(Prom, the Times.)
There
hhi
al
eerl
rykuea
enbi
odsl
n:o
rantore
ybe
ne
ta they
results ;oobf
to
hai
etn to
Censusenrs esotf i ntn.
Two huge-voitunes have just been issued which
e-
P
no science so imperfectly g eoafs and
181.
dBs osr
com-
prehended as tbat of statistics, nor coulid anything
be better calcuted to improve the popular appre-
ciation of this Subject than the books before us.
We have no doubt that many of our readers have
been in the habit of considering a urctional census
as a work of ,sqine labour, but no great skill and
as serving the Purposes rather of natural curiosity
than public advantage.. They could, of course,
understand that to count the heads of the British
population must require a certain amount of
trouble ; but .they imagined, perhaps, that the task
could be readily accomplished by a juilicious subdi-
vision of labour, and that when certain operations
of simple addition had been perforined the result
was completed. An act of Parliament ordered a
reckoning to be made of the inhabitants of Great
Britain. The computation took place 'accordingly,
and the numbers were returned at 21,121,967, of
whom 10,386,078 were males, and 10,735,919
females. What more was to be done ? The reply
to this question will be gathered, we hope, as we
proceed.
The first object was to construct a machinery
for effecting this simple enumeration—a work so
far from easy that the bare description of the
method employed occupies six folio pages of the
report. It was necessary to obtain from those who
alone could furnish it—viz., heals of families or
institutions—an authentic account of the numbers
under their respective roofs. For this purpose the
whole country*Wattrided by imaginary lines into
" registration districts," the recristration districts
into sub-districts, and the sub-districts into enume-
ration districts. The two former divisions already
existed under the system of civil registration, but
the latter was created for the purpose of the census.
•Of the enumeration districts there were 30,610,
each being assigned to one enumerator, who was to
complete his enumeration in one day. Of the me-
thod adopted we need say little, as every house-
holder will remember his own share in the trans-
action ; but there were some supplementary returns
to be procured, which required no little adjustment
of expedients and resources. Each householder of
the district accounted to the emunerator for the
inmates of his house ; but there were some persons
who were inmates of no houses at all. For instance
—miners, travellers, and policemen had to be com-
puted by a distinct machinery ; and besides these
classes, there were the persons who might be sleep-
ing on boats or barges, in barns, in tents, or in the
open air. • All these had to be estimated according
to the most promising plan ; and the reader may
be interested, perhaps, in learning that on the par-
ticular night of the census 12,924 people are be-
lieved to have been sleeping in barges, 9,972 in
barns, and 8,277 in the open air or under tents.
It is rather curious that in 1841 the number of the
houseless class was larger—viz., 22,303 ; but this
is explained by the fact that the census was then
taken at a season (June 7) when many Irish and
other labourers were engaged in the hay harvest.
Had the reckoning fallen upon the present summer,
this class of the returns might have been increased
by the whole garrison of Chobham Camp. It is
a curious evidence of Gipsy feeling that in one in-
stance a whole tribe struck their tents and decamped
to escape the enumerator.
But the returns of a census acquire their chief
utility from being contrasted with those of former
periods. When we have ascertained that the popu-
lation of Great Britain in 1851 was 21,128,967, the
next point is to discover what relation these num-
bers bear to the previous epochs. From this com-
parison, carried out in all its branches, we learn
the increase or decrease of the population, the an-
nual rate of such variations, and the proportionate
relations of the two sexes to each other. From
these results, again, we can approximate to some-
thing like a " law of population," that is to say, to
certain natural rules, the infraction of which must
be due to particular, and perhaps removable, dis-
turbing causes. All these calculations are elabo-
rately made in the volume before us. As we can
do little more on the present occasion than indicate
the various deductions furnished by the report, we
content ourselves with observing that the whole
population has doubled since 1801, and that,
though the general rate of increase has varied,
owing to the action of epidemics and emigration,
the sexes have preserved their proportions—viz.,
about 30 males and 31 females. The facts may be
conveyed perhaps more forcibly, if we state that in
half a century, notwithstanding the operation of
all opposing causes, ten millions of people have
been added to the population of Great Britain, an
increase nearly equalling the increase in all pre-
ceding ages.
The statistics of a census, however, do not stop
short at mere numbers. In furtherance of the
higher ends of political and social economy it is
necessary .to discriminate and classify the in-
habitants of a state ; and how is this to be done ?
Some idea may be formed of the latent difficulties
of the task when we say that much debate seems
to have occurred on the proper definition of a
" family," a " house," or a " town." According
to the precedents of former censuses, even a single
lodger not boarding in the house of which he was
the inmate constituted a " family;" but on the pre-
sent occasion the difficulty has been partly evaded
by substituting the word "occupier' in place of
the "family" of former returns. As to the word
" house," so enigmatical and debateable is the term
considered, that the authority of Dr. Carus, the
Saxon physician, is invoked in aid of the report,
and that of Tacitus in aid of Dr. Carus. The
question is, whether a mansion or tenement inha-
bited by many individuals or families on different
floors, as in Scotland; or in different chambers, as
in our Inns of Court, constitutes one house or
many. On former occasions the decision of this
point was actually considered impossible, but at
present it seems to have been ruled that houses are
" isoLs.ted dwellings, or dwellings separated by
party walls —a definition which would bring Han-
well Lunatic Asylum in the same category with the
lodge of a turnpike gate. In Great Britain the
number of families has risen from 2,260,802, in
1801, to 4,312,388 in 1851. The last half-century
has seen 1,815.567 "new lines of families" esta-
blished in England, while in Scotland the number
has increased from 364,079 to 600,098, notwith-
standing the migratory propensities imputed to its
inhabitants. The number of "inhabited houses" in
Great Britain was returned at 3,648,347, against
3,446,797 in the last census, and 1,870,476 in 1801.
Omitting decimals, we might state that there was 1
family to a house, 5 persons to a house, and 4 per-
s ons to a family—figures which are made to square
with those before given the fractions 1.182, 5.706,
4-4825.

Next comes the question of " towns"—a term
which is made to include all aggregations of dwell-
ings .above the small groups 'called " villages" or
" hamlets." Of 'these; -that- is to say, of " places
having defined boundaries and separately returned
in population tables, there are 17,150, while of ge-
nuine towns there are in England and Wales, 580,
in Scotland 225, and in the Cl4annel Islands 10.
Besides these points there are those of relative po-
pulation, of relative territorial area, and of the
proximity of the towns to each other—all which are
carefully discussed. " Conceive," says the report,
" au area of 58,320 square miles divided into 583
squares, each containing 25 square figures of four
square miles • a market town in the central square
containing 15,510 inhabitants, and the 24 similar
squares arranged symmetrically afound it in villages
containing churches and chapels Ind houses, hold-
ing in the aggregate 16,000 inhabitants. Now,
imagine the figures to be of every variety of form
as well as size, and a clear idea is obtained of the
way that the ground of the island has been taken
up and is occupied by the population." Something
is observed respecting the " adventious character"
of certain towns—i..e.i a chitructer created and.
sustained by special circumstances for special pur-
poses; but we do not see any mention of new towns.
To be sure towns do not multiply ike families, but
we imagined that two or threell,lbieeen,,ctaelrriledtoirnitalo
existence by thy, operation of the railway system.
From to: 0i we ascend to
subdivisions of the,. ,kin Viand the gdoPl,_ report
actually recapitulates the ancient distributions of
Britain from the earliest times, including the
divisions made by the Romans, nd Saxons suc-
cessively, the state of things un* the Heptarchy,
and the arrangement .by shire-N hundreds, and
appear
dext is supported
to
the 14 perusing some
tithings, which we owe to Alfred the Great. At
the
bdthis
lpi point,beraantiquarianl referencesi i fil ctt,
rlevaettoise aii
best known authorities,
ranging from Cresar's Commentaries to the essays of
living scholars. One circumstance may, perhaps,
amuse the reader. " The British population"—
that is to say, we Englishmen,, Welchmen, and
Scotchmen—are described as being distributed
" over a great multitude of islands rising between
the Atlantic and the North Sea," of which Great
Britain is the largest. probably no one ever under-

stood the term " British isles" in so very precise a
sense, which seems more; applicable to Venetian
than British territo,.7. Yet the expression is
perfectly correct. The " British isles" are actually
five hundred in number, though only 175 were
found to be inhabited on the morning of March 31,
1851. Of these islands we have a list, with their ,
names and population. Great Britain had over 20
millions of inhabitants, and Ireland over 6 mil-
lions ; Anglesea, Jersey, the Isle of Man, and the
Isle of Wight, had each more than 50,000 ; and
Guernsey, Lewis, Skye, and Shetland, over 20,000.
From these, however, we descend very rapidly to
classes with 10,000, 1,000, 500, 400, 100, 40, 30,
20, and 10 inhabitants each, till we filially get to a
mau with an island all to himself. The name of
this British Selkirk we cannot give, but his abode
is called Inchcolin, and is apparently a territorial
appanage of Fife. In conclusion, and by way of
conveying a general idea of the magnitude and in-
terest of the work, we may remark, that though
this first volume of the report professes to give, out
of all the facts recapitulated as deducible from the
census, nothing but the " number of the inhabi- •
tants in 1801, 1811, 1821, 1831, 1841, and 1851,"
it contains nearly 1,000 pages of condensed and
analysed matter.

EXPLOSION OF A STEAM-BOAT.

( From the Dublin Freeman. )
We deeply regret to have to state that a most lament-
able and fatal accident occurred on Thursday evening
on board the Times screw-steamer, one of whose boilers
exploded, causing loss of life and dreadful injuries to a
large number of persons, several of whom are not ex-
pected to survive. We give the particulars of this de-
plorable catastrophe, so far as they could be ascertained
last night.
The Times, one of the vessels belonging to the Dublin
and Liverpool Steam-Packet Company, and commanded
by Captain James Collis, left the North-wall yesterday
evening for Liverpool, at six o'clock, having on board
303 deck passengers (chiefly emigrants), and seven
cabin passengers. She also carried as part of her cargo
a number of cattle. When nearly opposite the Pigeon-
house, at about seven o'clock, a partial explosion of one
of her boilers took place, causing a rent, through which
there was an immediate and destructive escape of steam.
A scene of the greatest confusion and terror ensued. A
number of the unfortunate passengers who crowded the
deck were instantly overwhelmed and frightfully
scalded by the steam ; and those who had' the good
fortune to escape its destructive effects were in the
greatest alarm for their lives. The condensed steam and
boiling water shot up from the imidship hatch and the
window of the engine-room, and descended on the un-
fortunate deck passengers, who were gathered in the
waist of the vessel. Scarcely anything can be ima-
gined more appalling than the sight which the deck
presented ; men, women, and children rushing to every
side for shelter from the scalding steam, others—many
of them women--screaming in agony, the terrified cries
of their friends, and of numbers who were in search of,
and apprehensive for, the safety of friends, added to the
bellowing of the cattle and the bleating of sheep and
lambs, with which the vessel was laden, rendered the
whole a scene of horror happily without a parallel in
this country.
On the vessel being stopped, the boats were lowered,
and the unfortunate sufferers conveyed ashore. Nothing
could be more frightful than the appearance some of the
poor creatures presented as they were taken from the
boats. On examination it was found that 33 persons
'were injured, many of them severely, and that two, a
boy about four and a girl about three years old, were
dead. We were unable to ascertain the names of the
latter. Their bodies were removed to the hospital at
Pigeon-house Fort, where an inquest will be held on
them this day.
The greater portion of the sufferers were landed at the
fort, where Dr. Gilburn, the resident physician of the
hospital, was in immediate attendance. and rendered
every assistance in his power. Colonel Savage, and the
officers and men of the Royal Artillery, also exerted
themselves in every possible manner to alleviate the tor-
ture of the unfortunate creatures. About half-past 7
o'clock a party of police, under Inspector Finnamore,
arrived, and proceeded to assist the soldiers in removing
the persons who had been injured to the various hospi
tals.

Dr. Gilburn found, on examination, that six_ of the
sufferers could not be removed without imminent danger,
and he had them carried to the hospital of the Pigeon-
house, where everything that care and skill could sug-
gest was immediately done for them.
Inspector Finnamore had stretchers brought for the
conveyance of those who could not be taken on cars to
the different hospitals in the city. Some of the passen-
gers who had escaped uninjured were sent by a boat up
the river and landed at the wharf, and those who had
received partial injuries, which did not render it neces-
sary to send thorn to ilospital, were treated with the
greatest humanity by numbers of citizens, who exhi-
bited the utmost sympathy for them. None of the ca-
bin passengers were injured. The second engineer was
severely and the first engineer slightly scalded. We un-
derstand that the Times has been built only about 18
months, and that a fortnight since her boilers were examined and certified to be in a sound state. The rent caused by
the explosion was about 15 inches long and two wide.
We should observe, that one of the cabin passengers,
Mr. Thomas Henry Carter, an exhibitor of a patent
cooking apparatus in the Great Exhibition, exerted him-
self very creditably, and rendered valuable services in
landing the persons injured, and as far as possible allevi-
ating their sufferings.
As soon as the accident became known to Mr. Middle-
ton, the agent of the company, he immediately despached
the Mona steam tug to the vessel in order to afford any
assistance that might be required, and we understand
that directions were given that no expense should be
spared on the passengers who were injured. It is ex-
pected that the Times will be ready to resume her
voyage to-morrow.

Captain Geary, of the Trafalgar, City of Dublin Com-
'any's steamship, on passing the Times, kindly offered
his services, but as there was no damage done to the
vessel, with the exception of the rent in the boiler, there
was no occasion for them. •
The engineer, William Galway, gives the following
account of the accident :—"At about half-past 6 the
vessel was going nearly nine miles an hour against the
tide, which was then flowing, the pressure of steam on
the boiler at the time being 101 b. to the square inch less
than it was calculated to bear. When the vessel had
proceeded down the river to the point nearly opposite
the Pigeon-house, he was going up the ladder from the
engineroom, after having left the machinery in charge
of Patrick Mclntyre (the assistant engineer), when the
explosion took place. He immediately rushed down,
seized the safety valve and stopped the engine and in
doing so was severely scalded on the hands. He also
states that at the time the vessel started the water in the
boilers was 15 inches above the level of thr, action of the
flame from the furnaces. In accounting Tor the cause of
the accident he states that in one of the landing or com-
partments of the boiler a portion of the rivets had been
frayed, and when the pressure was put on the part that
was thus indurated gave way. The pumping gear for
supplying the engines with water was in perfect order,
and at work at the time of the accident."
The following persons were conveyed to Baggot-street
Hospital on cars and stretchers by the police, and men
belonging to the Artillery Corps stationed at the Pigeon
house :—Thomas Rathkin, county Galway, labourer ;
Teresa King, Kilbeggan ; Margaret Donelly, Birr (who
was accompanied by a little boy, her son, who fortunately
escaped injury) ; Michael Feeny, county Galway, la-
bourer; John Mulheran, Williamstown, county Galway;
Mary Cummins, Ballinasloe ; Mary Z.VCormick,Drumsna;
county Galway, servant ; Catherine Fitzgerald, Lough,
rea ; Thomas Molloy, town of Galway; Bridget Kenny,
servant, Williamstown, county Galway ; Mary Neville,
Liverpool ; Anne Mulcale, Williamstown, county Gal-
way, is so dreadfully injured that little hope is enter-
tained of her recovery.
Among the persons conveyed to Mercer's Hospital
were—Anne Droney, from the county of Clare ; Mary
Diegan, from Ratgangan, county of Kildare; Jane Acton,
from Westport, county Mayo ' • Ann Maguire, a widow,
and her two children, Patrick and John, the latter a
mere infant, all dreadfully scalded.
Catherine Kelly, of Westport; Charles Cassidy, of Kil-
beggan • and Mary G-eraty, of Westport, were conveyed
to the jervis-street Hospital, where they were promptly
attended to by Dr. Phelps, the resident physician.
The following are the names of some of the unfortunate
sufferers lying in the hospital of the Pigeon-house, so
dreadfully scalded that they could not be removed :
Ellen Ward, Galway ; Catherine Feeney, of Annadown,
countyGalway; Maryßarrett, of Clare; Patrick Maguire,
of Sligo ; Mary Drawney, of Ennistymon.
There are others in the Pigeon-house Hospital, but in
such a dreadful state that their names, or the localities
from which they came, could not be ascertained from
them.

At half-past 11 o'clock Dr. Doyle, of Irishtown, who
had been sent to render assistance to Dr. Gilburn in the
treatment of the patients at the Pigeon-house Hospital,
reported that all the sufferers were going on favourably,
with the exception of one poor woman, whose life was
in imminent peril.

(ADDITIONAL PARTICULARS.)
Nine of the persons who suffered on Thursday even-
ing by the bursting of the boiler of the Times steamer
in the Liffey are dead, and several others are in a hope-
less state. At the time of the melancholy accident
there were 320 passengers on deck, of whom 36 were
scalded by the steam as it escaped from the fractured
boiler. They are all of the labouring class. Of six
women who could not be removed from the Pidgeon-
house Gort, owing to the severity of their injuries, one
died yesterday morning, and two others are not ex-
pected to survive.

Yesterday an inquest was held on the bodies of two
children named Taylor, who died in Baggot-street Hos-
pital. Mr. Lawson attended as counsel, and Mr.
Mnrray as solicitor, for the Screw Steam-ship Company.
The jury found the following verdict :—" We find
that William Thomas Taylor and Margaret Mulhane, on
the evening of the 2d instant, when on board the Times