The Sun.
London, England, 1842-01-12 00:00:00

THE CENSUS.

An amended account of the population of
Scotland has just been published by authority.
It appears; that the population of six counties
was stated erroneously in the previous account,
in consequence of the haste • with which it was
prepared, in order that it might be laid as soon
as possible before Parliament:
The fbllowing are the counties, with the
correct returns of the total number of in-
habitants in 1841 :—Forfar, 170,4C0 ; Nairn,
9,218 ; Orkney and Shetland, 60,796 ; Ross and
Cromarty, 78,980; Roxburgh, 46,003 ; and
Wigtown, 39,179. The population of Glasgow
was stated incorrectly to be 257,592; whereas it.
amounts to 267,463. There is a slight error alSo
in the return of the population of Great Britain
and the Islands in the British Seas. The correct
number, including the army, navy, and mer-
chant-seamen on shore at the time of the Census,
is 18,656,414.

A MINIMUM OF WAGES.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SlR,—Opinion creeps slowly on, and there is
nothing like giving it from time to time a fillip,
by taking a new step into the region of the un-
moved.

A little time ago you inserted for me an in-
quiry into what would be the result in a land-
lord-ridden country, of everybody (saving al-
ways the continuance of the landlords' tax) being
taken with the determination of giving away all
they had iu charity. And we came to the con-
clusion, that it would be of exactly the same
effect, as, giving away in charity in a ship kept
purposely at sea and short of water.
I now want to know, in the same manner,
what would be the effect of the other nostrum
so amiably recommended by the monopolists,
and so kindly gulped down by their gulls and.
agents among the working classes ; which con-
sists in the manufacturing employers agreeing
to give their workmen any sum it might be con-
venient to assign in the shape of wages ?
It may be said that this would come under the
Old head of charity. And so it would, if carried
to the extreme of the imaginable. But if this
is not secured, it seems to admit of an earlier
Solution. Suppose then it was enacted, that no
manufacturing employer should offer an ordinary
adult male operative less than twenty shillings
a-day, and others in some defined proportion;
and that by the erection of a guillotine or other-
wise, men were made afraid to resist or evade
the law. How would the matter solve itself ?
Would it not be thus ? The masters would
cut down their operations to such a Portion as
could be carried on consistently with twenty
shillings a-day to so many as were employed.
And the difference, would be dismissed from
employment. The immediate result, therefOre,
to the working classes, would be something very
like one man in six having six pounds a-week,
instead of six having a pound a-piece.
If the guillotine was set to work to oblige the
masters to pay twenty shillings a-day to as many
as chose to ask tin- it, then the question would
come very near to the case where men without
a guillotine were supposed to come to the reso-
lution of giving away all they had in charity.
Heads or no heads, the thing could go on no
longer than till the masters had nothing more
to giver And then the scheme must end in the
discovery as befime, that in a ship short of water
nothing can mend the matter but going where
Water is to be had.

I know the nervousness of the public when
they hear of guillotines; and purposely incur
the evil for the sake of noting, that as in France
the people, with less chance of knowledge, and
therefore more excusable, tried all manner of
follies in the way of making bread by blood,
in our country it is the owners of the soil who
set up the machine, and a cruelly blunt and
slow kind of death it is from what I see of it,
by which the public is to be wrought into subjec-
tion to the quackeries of the greatest dunces that
ever ruled in an industrious nation.
A member of the Chamber of Deputies con-
cluded every speech on every subject, with:—
liberte illimitie de la presse. In addressing com-
mercial men and bread-eaters, it might be ex-
cusable in the same way to wind up every argu-
ment, with the one word of compensation.
Yours very sincerely,
T. PERRONET THOMPSON.
Manchester, Bth January, 1842.

ALDERSGATE DISPENSARY.--On Monday a
general meeting of tie governors, donors, and sub-
scribers, wa held in the Board-room of the Institution,
Aldersgate-street ; F. B. Herring, Esq., treasurer, in
the chair.. The Rev. E. D. Leigh, rector, Dr. Sally,
Messrs. Grant, Godson, and other supporters of the
charity, were present. Mr. W. H. Wood, Honorary Secre
tary, read the Report of the Committee, which stated'
that so increasing were the demands for medical and
surgical assistance, that an assistant physician and an
additional surgeon were indispensible. They, there-
fore, recommended that a physician and surgeon be added
to the medical staff. It was unanimously adopted that
the recommendation of the Committee should be acted
upon. The apothecary laid upon the table the returns of
the numbers who received medical and surgical advice,
with medicine, during the year. From which it ap-
peared that 8,000 invalids had, during the year, ob-
tained gratuitous advice and medicine at the Dispensary,
and that 1,500 had been visited at their own houses. In
answer to a question, he replied that every person, with-
out regard to localityi upon applying at the Dispensary,
obtained assistance, and that all residing within the
City were, if necessary, visited at their houses. The
financial report" was most satisfactory. Amongst the
donors were his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge.
25/. ; the Rev. R. D. Leigh, 101. ; F. B. Herring, Esq.,
151. 15s. ; Sir Peter Laurie, Alderman Gibbs, Alderman
Farncombe, Mr. Godson, and several other gentlemen,
101. each.