The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-20 00:00:00

ebrieening 11

LONDON, THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 1851.

The Commons met yesterday at Twelve.
FE,,,,NEN moved the second rcadkg of the Hop
Bill. The measure was opposed by Mr. DEEDES and
Mr. H. DRU3I3fOND, and on a division it was rejected by
a majority of 122, the numbers being for the second
reading, 9; against it, 111.
Mr. W. WILLIAMS moved the second reading of the
Sunday Trading Prevention Dill.
i.,b3,Eqw2ntly withdrew
Mr. BARING WALL moved that it be read a second
time that day six months, but
Sir B. HALL, on
his amendment, at the suggestion the
understanding that the Bill should be referred tea Select
Committee.
The Bill was then read a second
time, and ordered to
bik referred to a Select Committee.
The Exper4cs of Prosecutions Bill, the Apprentices
and ery ants Bill, and the Viee-Chancciler's Bill, were
respectively parsed through Committee, and the House
adjourned.

After a very few days from this time have elapsed
the population of the whole country will be once more
registered. It behoves each individual to assist as
far as it is at all practicable in rendering the present
census scrupulously exact and accurate. Otherwise
thn ptincipal object of the undertaking will remain un-
offatted. It should be_oorne in mind, for ezansple,

that this periodical enumeration:of the number of inha-
bitants is the only secure means afforded to a Govern-
ment of carrying on a wholesome system both of legis-
lation and administration. Without acquiring some
precise knowledge of the extent of the masses whose
interests are entrusted to their keeping, the statesmen
of a great commonwealth can never conduct the
labours of the Government with anything like an
adequate regard to its requirements. It has there-
fore been arranged, almost from time immemorial,
that the responsibilities of the rulers of the earth
shall be aided towards their fulfilment by a census
taking place at intervals—at least such has almost in-
variably been the case in every land blessed with the
advantages of civilization. As far back as the time
immediately preceding the Christian era, we learn
from the solemn records of Holy Writ, that such
was the custom prevalent in Judas, then under
Roman and Pagan domination. It is re-
lated by each of the four Evangelists, that
MART and JOSEPH at the period of the Nativity
were overtaken in Bethlehem by that tremendous
event while proceeding to inscribe their names upon
the census-list—" the whole world," according to the
language of the Scriptures, then hastening " to be
enrolled." So it was, more or less, before the com •
mencement cf the age of Christianity—so it has been,
more or less, from the epoch of its first establishment.
Considering the immense numerical increase in the
human family in modern times, it is assuredly far
from surprising that the expenses of taking a census
have very considerably increased. Nevertheless, with
this necessary increase in expenditure, we have acquired
a greater facility than was perhaps ever before possessed
of obtaining a truthful knowledge of the numbers
of the population. The machinery of society has
been so far perfected by enterprise and industrial ap-
plication that no very considerable difficulty exists
now-a-days of obtaining any class of facts whatever.
Let it be remembered that in the daily record* of
England—her newspapers—the future historian will
be able to trace every species of particulars relating
to our public or domestic life as a people, and the
gist of our observation will be apparent. Journalism
is so far acting as the pioneer of history. Looking
back from the distance of one or more centuries to
the present generation, the annalist may, through the
mouldy old volumes of newspapers stored away in the
cellars of the British Museum, learn with the utmost
precision imaginable data in abundance, which we find
it scarcely possible to scrape together in shreds and
patches from the chronicles of our departed ancestors.
They will there be enabled to calculate to a fraction
the cost of our food and our raiment, the wages of
our labourers, the extent of our imports, the preva-
lence of insolvency or otherwise, with all the fluctua-
tions in capital and interest, in commercial hope and
despair, in the relative and even shifting proportions of
employment and its compensation. From these ma-
nifold details a just estimate may be arrived at as to
the actual prosperity or sufferings of the community.
With the assistance of the regulations and systems
acted upon in all the political and mercantile under-
takings of the empire, the census now resolved upon
by the Legislature may be rendered almost faultless
in its minute exactitude. Nothing, indeed, is re-
quired to secure this advantage to it but the cordial
and conscientious co-operation of the people them-
selves in filling up the printed forms of the calculation.
Against the wilful misstatements of the unscrupulous
of course our rulers have no protection whatsoever.
The truthfulness of the facts written down by the
head of every household it is compelled perforce to
leave to their own ideas of right or wrong. Seeing,
however, that no conceivable advantages can be de-
rived from an erroneous filling up of the census-list,
it may assuredly be counted upon with something
like certainty that the facts collected together are
precise and veritable.

It will remain with the properly constituted
authorities to estimate the exact state of the
nation, after obtaining the aggregate num-
bers of the census. The difficulty of accom-
plishing thus much may not be conjectured by
many individuals. In order to acquire any adequate
notion of the progress made of late years by the people
of the United Kingdom it will be necessary to examine
other documents besides the lists of the census—it
will be necessary, for example, to compare those
lists with the records elsewhere accumulated by
the Registrar-General and the Inspectors of Emi-
gration, the amount of the annual mortality
and the number of those who have periodically left
our shores, being carried away to other countries in
the great game of colonization. Without the due col-
lation of these very different catalogues of the dead, the
living, and the emigrants, without contrasting them
carefully with each other, no correct idea of the ad-
vance made by the nation can possibly be obtained.
In order that all this may be properly cared for
sufficient time must be permitted to those entrusted
with the labour before the Parliamentary documents
referring to the new census can be printed for cir-
culation.

From these and other considerations having a like
tendency, we cannot but think that a proceeding
of the nature referred to should have the witty motto
festina lento for its guidance. Precipitation in the
matter would effect but little good, and might result
in an incalculable amount of evil. Therefore it is that
we are solicitous no needless haste should be shown
in carrying out the scheme to an unnecessarily rapid
completion. And we feel satisfied at the same mo-
ment that every intelligent advocate for retrench-
ment in the expenditure of public moneys in the
national service will coincide with us in regarding
the census as a proper object for the display of a
liberality amounting even to munificence. Its im-
portance is such, we conceive, as to justify dis-
bursements which made for a different purpose
might be judiciously stigmatised as extravagant. No
sane well-wisher of the country can grudge for an in-
stant one. single fraction of the sums granted by the
House of Commons for the compilation of a series of
papers which may be looked upon as being literally
an index to the social, commercial, political, moral,
and religious wants of the community. As consti-
tuting such an index we anticipate the completion of
the new census about to be taken in the United
Kingdom with no small degree of curiosity and
solicitude.

Of the burthens upon land, the copyhold tenure,
the almost sole existing remnant of the feudal laws,
will be found, when correctly understood, one of the
greatest. It is a mistaken notion that the lords of
manors would be prejudiced by abolition on the
terms proposed—full compensation for their rights ;
indeed, a majority of the lords derive such small pro-
fits from their manors that, as great landowners, they
would be benefited by an immediate abolition even
without compensation. The opposition to abolition
emanates from the combined co-operation of a body of
farmers and speculators, mere traders in the litigation
and extortions that may be worked out of ill-defined,
absurd laws, affording great opportunities for all the
chicaneries of heartless men who can trade upon the
timidity and necessities of others.

The lords, generally speaking, however, as great
landowners, must be great sufferers from the extreme
complexity of the innumerable codes of laws. In
the acquisition of a house, or a portion of a
garden, it is not unusual for the purchaser
to have the investigation of several titles.
Lands copyhold of different manors are so intermixed
with freehold that even in parts round London—in
Richmond, Twickenham, Stepney, Islington—an
enormous tax is paid in the investigation of titles as
to what, from the negligence or incapacity of stewards,
there is in truth at last no certainty. The land at
Holloway, on which so many thousands are now being
expended by the City in the erection of a new prison,
was part of a manor in which, for ninety years, the
admissions on descent were taken by the lord accord-
ing to common law ; but a few years before the pur-
chase by the City it was discovered that the ancient
and binding custom was borough English. In the
adjoining manor the custom is gavelkind—so that, if
a_raan be particularly lucky he may become possessed
odlesacehouse
accordingor garden
in Islington, governed by and
to three different cedes of laws.
This stretch of the imagination as to the .
This is
ab-
surdity of the law of England as to lands. The
Castle House Bungay is held of three manors; and
a church in at
Hertfordshire was fora long time, and
may be now, unconsecrated because it was built on a
piece of land at the junction of three manors.
The lords, as
settlement,
greatlandowners, suffer to a
-- degree known only to professiona. men in
the pur-
chase, mortgage,au4 all other transac.

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