Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1851-04-05
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER.
EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENCE.
REVIEW OF THE LAST HALF CENTURY OF
BRITISH HISTORY AND PROGRESS

THE following paper forming part OF one of the Letters
Of European correspondent to hand in due time
after ts date bat al time when cosmns given up
the affairs Of Dur Government that obliged to
defer IL We bring It forward now when will have some
chance Of being read and re-ad with the attention due
statistical paper elaborate, reliab and r
LONDON, JANU AIRY %, 1851.
The date (l6S1) gives us notice of our arrival at
one Of those starting places in the flow OF time
which offer materials Tor retros pect and reflection.
The first half of the eyentful nineteenth century,
memorable for its fifteen years of no less than
for its thirty Eve years Of peace, has to close
and is added.to the long list Of by-gone times.
1T is the tendency Of the Imaginative, the igno-
rant the ndolent and the old 10 place their golden
are in the past. Now, we certainly belong to one,
and probxbly to all of these classes, yet we are by
no means inclined TO come to this conclusion. We
behold in the present times events pressing closer
and closer upon each other, and thought taking its
tone and its impetus from the rapid movement and
incessant whirl Of material things. Science is sti
mulatcd by her own recent inventions, and is NOV
ing forward witk momentum proportoned TO the
increased numbers of mankind. Under these ia
vorabe circumstances, fifty years may suffice to
work changes which centuries of the old jog-trot
times could not have achieved. We therefore re-
gard the present as the true golden age Of the world,
and are thankful that our lot has been cast during its
duration. We look upon the past with respect and
affection, but comparison Of that past with the
present leads us to indulge in high anticpations Of
the future. We think we see progress written upon
the social the moral, the POLITICAL and the religious
world, and we can scarcely imagine that any one
who compares the statements which we shall sub
init, of the leading circumstances attending the con-
dition of the British Empire in 1890 and 1850 re-
spectvely, will, upon duly considering the compa-
rison prefer the former exhibit to the latter one
Politicians and political economists are generally
supposed to be cold, arithmetical, and unenthusias
tic; but if we presume, on the present occasion,
to exercise portion of the functions attached to
these occupations, afraid that our statements
although based upon ascertaned facts, will subject
as to charge of directly opposite nature-so
far wide Of all former precedent have been the
events and the results Of the last fifty years. In the
words Of the I" Economist g that period has not
only been rich beyond nearly all others in politi
cal events Of thrilling interest and mighty mo-
ment but in changes and incidents of moral and
ssocial significance, it has had no parallel since the
Christian era. 1t has witnessed the most tremen-
dous war and the most enduring peace which the
world has known for centuries. 1t has witnessed
leap forward in all the elements Of material well
being such, as neither scientific vision nor poetic
fancy ever pictured. It is not too much to say
thatn wealth. in the arts Of life in the discoveries
Of science and their application to the comfort,
the health, the safety, and the capabilities Of man,
in public and private morality, in the diffusion Of
knowledge, in the manifestations of social charity
and justice, in religious freedom, and in political
WISDOM the period Of the last fifty years has car
red us forward faster and further than any other
half century in modern times. 1t stands at the
head, acile princeps unrivalled and unapproached
of all epochs of equal duration. Nay, more it
lis scarcely too much to say that, in many of the
particulars we have enumerated, it has witnessed
a more astonishing and rapid progress than all the
centuries which have preceded it. In several Vi
tai points the difference between the eighteenth
and the nineteenth centuries is greater than that
: between the first and the eighteenth, as far as
.scivilized Europe is concerned"
These are strong assertions. We will now pro-
ceed to examine how far they are supported by the
). facts and figures of English statistics; we have
neither the materials nor the ability to institute
wider inquiry. And first as relates to the popula-
tion OF the British Isles at the commencement Of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and at the
present time respectively, estimating the latter
cording to the previous rates of increase:
100. 1901. 1851.
England and Wales, 100000 s,s7o.O0O ls. 0O0, 900
Scotland, .... 1000, 600 1850, 900 $50, 600
Ireland, ......... 100000 100000 s,l30,0OO