The Sun.
London, England, 1851-06-17 00:00:00

J UNE 17, 1851.

CENSUS OF GREAT BRITAIN.

HOUSES AND POPULATION.

1851 (31st March).
HOUSES. POPULATION.
In- (lulu- Build-
habited. habited ing. Persons. Males. Females.
Great Bri-
ta'n anc,
Islands
in the
British
Seas... 1675451 165603 29109 20919531 10184687 10734844
England &
Wales.. 327697.5 152570 26529 179058311 8761554 9151277
Scotland. 376650 11956 2378 2870784 1363622 1507162
islands
the Bri-
tish Seas 21826 1077 202 1429161 66511 76405
- -
London .. 307722 16389 4817 2363141' 11013561 1258785
1811 (7th June).
Great Bri-
tain and
Isla ds• I
in the
British
Seas .. 34659511198129 30334 18655951 90746421 9581339
Englmd &
Wales... 2943939 , 1732141 27468 15911757 7775224 8136533
Scotland.. 502652, 24026' 2646 2620184 1241862 1378322
Islands in
thu Bri-
tish Seas 191"0 669 220 124040 57556 -
66484
-- --
London ..! 262737 11321 4032 1948369 912001 1035368

NOTE —The army in Great Britain, and the navy, there:twit sea-
men, ant other persons on board vessels in the parts, are included
in the return of 1851 ; the navy, merchant seamen, and persons on
board vessels, we-e not included in 1841.
The apparent decrease of houses in Scotland between 1841 and
1851 is attributable to the fact th in 1841 flats or storeys were
reckoned 1.1 many places as " Houses ;" in the present Census the
more correct definition has been emplo: ed.
GEORGE GRABAM, Registrar-General.
Census-office, Cralg's-court, June 14, 1851.

THE CENSUS OF GREAT BRITAIN
IN 1851.
(From the Times.)

We are enabled to-day to furnish an epitome of the
grind totals obtained from the Census of Great Britain,
taken on the night of the 30th of March last. These
results have been anticipated with more or less of in-
terest in various quarters for the last two months, and
we have met with persons who seemed somewhat dis-
appointed that they were not furnished with the general
result somewhere about the middle of last April, and
who might as reasonably have looked for it on that
earliest day of the month which is specially set apart for
the benefit of those who prefer unreasonable demands.
The varied and lengthened processes of common
arithmetic which were necessary before a few general
results could possibly be obtained must be obvious to
every one who will give the subject a very little con-
sideration, the result of which, we think, must be that
disappointment will give place to admiration of the skill
and energy with which a work of such magnitude has
been completed.
Let it be observed, then, that the number of enume-
rators employed in this workl on the 31st of March was
40,000 in England and Wales, Scotland, and the islands
in the British seas, and on board the vessels in the ports
of Great Britain, and that the schedules with which they
were furnished called for several important particulars
not required in any previous census, and often placing
them in the position of persons engaged in " the pursuit
of knowledge under difficulties."
The " Instructions to Enumerators" is a paper of some
complexity, approaching in stubbornness to a fluctional
equation or a railway time-table, and we understand
those " instructions" have been faithfully carried out,
with scarcely an exception, and that in the face of strong
opposition, or much ina•tention, or strange caprices on
the part of certain " householders," by whom the
schedules ought to have been filled up.
From what we have had an opportunity of learning
as to the difficulty pf eliciting the requisite information
from many of her Majesty's lieges, we are satisfied
that a very respectable and very interesting volume,
perhaps " the book of the season," might be manufac-
tured in the shape of the History of the Census of 1851.
Enumerators have strange tales to tell of ladies of a
certain age who would rather lose a tooth—a loss they
could ill afford—than admit they were a year older than
when the census was taken in 1841—of Irishmen who
were expected to give a straightforward answer, ander
a penalty of five pounds. " besides the inconvenience
and annoyance of appearing before two justices of the
peace"—of various poetical householders," who
" Lisped in numbers as the numbers came;"
who gave figures, indeed, but not the figures which the
sober censor called for—of mathematical " househol-
ders," who have made net among them a XIIIth Book
of the Elements—and of the ravings of the thirty thou-
sand who, though at large and acting for themselves as
responsible persons, seem on the way to the place of
sadusion aad restraint, and whose seribblings have had
to be replaced by authenticated facts.
Notwithstanding all these difficulties, the enumerators
had, by the Bth of April. to transmit their books, con-
taining all the required information, together with the
schedules carefully arranged, to the local Registrar, and
a summary, containing the name of each parish or town-
:ship, either wholly or partly in his district, the number
of separate occupiers, the number of houses inhabited,
uninhabited, or building, besides the computed numbers
who were in barges, boats, barns, tents, or the open air.
This information, as soon as it was obtained by the
Registrars, and hid undergOne th.-ir careful revision,
was passed on to the Superintendent lt,>gistrar, from
whom it was, according to he statute. to b received at
the central office by tne 31st of May. It is now 14
days, exclusive of Sundays, since all the requisite
information was received at the chief office,
_
tton spread over about 6,000 ,000 forms, and
printed
those forms weighing nearly 40 tons of paper,
and the important contents of the whole in
their grand results are to-day published throughout the
country. The fact ought also to be chronicled, that
such was the extraordinary celerity manifested by the
various officers under the Census Commi.sion, that the
approximate returns, in a manner sufficient for the pur-
poses of Government, but not for general publication,
were known a week ago by the Secretary of State.
The excellence of the arrangements by which these
early results have been secured will perhaps be the better
appreciated when it is observed that the United States
census of last year has but just now arrived at the point
vhich our Government has been enabled to reach in ten
weeks.

It sly uld be noticed also that in France, where the
Censui hag been taken every five years, a year has gene-
rally elapsed before the public have been able to learn
the results.

It is interesting to observe, that the results which
nave been obtained of this census in ten weeks are
tgainst four monils in the last census; and we believo
it was above a year before we could learn the results of
the enumeration in 1831.

The expedition with which the work has been con-
ducted would, however, be of little value if it had been
secured at the expense of accuracy. From the tests
which we have applied to the abstract before us, we
believe that the results will ho found perfectly to a:-
!or(' with the expectations which might have been an-
ticipated.
Fee decennial amount and rate of increase will be
understood by the following table, in reference to
shich it should be observed that, owing to the early
period of the year at which the c-n.us was taken,
here has been a loss of 68 days, which ought to have
gone into the interval between the last and the present
;amine :

Great Britain
with the Cha-
nnel Islands ..

1 Persons 2,212,892 i The decennial
Males.. 1,062,213 per centage
Females 1,500,679 of increase is
1 Persons 1,946,384
Males •• 934 245 Ditto .... ..
Females 1,012,043
Persons 245.237
Males.. 116,551 Ditto ......
Females 128,686
Persons 18,876
Males • . 8.955 I Ditto ......
Females P,921
/ Persons 406,961
Males. 181,900 Ditto • • ....
1

Persons 12.10
Males .. 11.94
Fein -Iles 12.25
Persons 12.48
Males • . 12.24
Females 12.69
Persons 9.55
Males .. 9.51
Females 9.52
Persons 15.53
Males.. 13.85
Females 15.23
Per- ons 21.33
Males 20,,"

England • • ....

Scotland .

islands in the
British seas ..

London

• ,
Females 222,061.. —Females 21.88
Had there been no disturbing causes in operation the
increase of the population would probably have pro-
ceeded in geometrical progression t) an amount from
which the numbers now presented materially differ. A.
deficiency to this extent might, however, have been an-
licipated from the causes which have been in operation
during the la,t ten years, and which have been sufficient
to account for the diminished rate of increase which is
obvious in the present return. The causes to which we
refer—emigration and the visitation of cholera and
diarrhoea—would necessarily modify the law of increase
in the population so as to assimilate it to that of the in-
crease of money at compound interest, the rate of interest
being diminished every year. We have, therefore, to
expeet that the census, if correctly taken, would
give us a regular increase of the population at a
gradually lessening rate; and this is the result ac-
tually exhibited by the returns which are now made.
We wish to direct particular attention to this point, as it
will at once account for the somewhat startling fact that
the rate of interest should have been greater between
the years 'll—'2l, and '2l—'3l, than during the last
ten years.
It will be observed, also, that in Great Britain the de-
cennial per centage of increase is considerably in favour
of females—a fact which, it will be remembered, is not
in accordance with the law regulating the. proportion of
males to females in a given number of births. This ap-
parent anomaly is accounted for by the great dispropor-
tion of male to female emigrants, by
.the absence of a
large number of men from Great Britain in the army and
navy, to which some addition must be made from those
males who, during the last ten years, have "left their
country for their country's goou" in greater
.numbers
than the female convicts, and by the well established law
of the greater longevity of females.
There is another point of comparison between the
figures in the returns and a popular fact of a painful
nature, which has lately engaged much public attention.
We refer to the proportion of occupants in dwelling-
houses, which, it will be seen, has increased since the
last census, the proportion in IE4I being 7.42, and
which has now, according to the enumerators, increased
to 7.65, showing the probability that they have not lost
sight of any of the population, and at the same time con-
firming the details which have recently appeared respect-
ing the crowded state of the dwellings of the poor.
It will be observed that Ireland is not included in that
portion of the census the results of which are now pub-
lished. There is great reason to apprehend that the re-
sults of famine, pestilence, and emigration will present,
in reference to that country, an awful deficiency between
the actual amount of the population and the numbers
that would have been returned had the ordinary rate of
increase been uninterrupted. Those returns we await
with much interest, as well as the enumeration of our
countrymen sojourning or travelling in foreign countries,
and the numerous British subjects in our East Indian
and colonial possessions.

--
THE UNITED STATES.
NEW. Yong, JUNE 3.—Some months have now
elapsed since the census returns of 1850 were sufficiently
made up to show the aggregate increase of every class
of population in each section of the country; but it is
only within a few days that some of the minor details
have been published, which cannot fail to interest those
who have made a study of the present condition and
future prospects of the black population in the free as
well as the slave States.

New England has, since the existence of the union,
been generally looked upon as the land of promise as
well as of refuge to the fugitive or emancipated slave—
as the place where, of all others, his relative position to
the whites would be least degrading; and among those
of that quarter he has, doubtless, found more sympathy
end kindness than has been elsewhere extended to him.
The returns, however, do not afford evidence of that in-
crease in numeer which this state of greater equality
should naturally have encouraged, and which is actually
manifested in those States where his happiest condition
is that of slavery.
The total increase of the whites in New England
within the last thirty years has been 1,066,294, or 65
per cent. upon the number existing in 1820, though the
constant migration to the Western States has not been
fully counterbalanced by the number of foreign immi-
grants introduced. Darin.. the same period the increase
of blacks has -been 1,350, or only 6i per cent., notwili-
stantling the constant influx of fugitive*. Since tae
previous census of 1840 0)4 number ea• absolutely de-
creased. The greatest faltieg off is in New Hampshire,
where of all other states ,cost has been done for their
safety. and present protection, and where no attempt has
thus tar been made to pursue a runaway; yet even ;here
decrease the
is about two-titths of the whole. In Ver-
mont and Cone.cticur it is also visible, and the. increase
in Massachusetts is only 105.
The following table ehows the number of coloured
persons in each of those States at the periods to which
it refers

1850. 184^. 1830. 1820. 1790.
Maine 1,313 1,355 1,177 929 with Mass
New Hampshire 477 537 607 783 788
Vermont 7lO 730 881 918 271
Massachusetts ...8,773 8,668 7,049 6,740 *6,001
Rhode Island 3,543 3,238 3,578 3,502 4,355
Connecticut 7,415 8,105 8,072 8,009 5,572

22,*231 22.633 21,361 20,881 16,98
• Including the then province of Maine.
Increase of coloured persons in New England—
From H2O to 18'-i0 ........... 483
From 1830 to 1840
1,752
Decrease from 1840 to 402