The official report of Dr Webster, eighty years ago, states that the total number of inhabitants then amounted to 998. According to this last return, there are 224 families resident under 198 roofs. It may not be irrelevant to mention, that during a course of pastoral visitation, which was made in the months of February and March of the present year, when a minute numerical survey was taken, the total population was ascertained to be 1050 souls.
Considerable attention is paid to neatness of dress and cleanliness of personal appearance.
And in such estimation is neatness of apparel held, that the want of raiment equal in quality to that of a next door neighbour is, in some instances, viewed as a valid apology for absence from church, not only when there exists no decided disinclination, but, on the contrary, a seeming anxiety to attend. While a commendable regard to personal and domestic spruceness is often observable, yet some of those families and individuals occasionally discover a neglect of various essential branches of comfort and convenience. Its inhabitants consist principally of weavers, and other handicraft tradesmen. About twenty-four looms are now in use, several of which are plied by females. The comparatively small income arising from that occupation induced, of late years, a considerable proportion of men to exchange it for agricultural employments.