The Camden weekly journal. [volume] (Camden, South-Carolina) 1853-1861, 1853-10-04
Curious Fact..;

| a London letter in the National Intelligent
Ger contains some very reiHarkable Facts re-
specting the population Of Great Britain, which,
we condrnse thus:
:-"T The returns Of the population Of Great
Britain, according TO the census Of 1850, have
at length been published, in part, in two very
thick lolio volumes. TIE labor Of collecting.
this information was immense; GO supern-
tendent registrars, 2,l90 registrars, and s0,-
6l0 enume ators were employed .in England
and Wales, and in Scotland l,0l0 superinten.
dents, and 1878 enulncrators. Jaiors, mas.
ters of warehouses, cnstom.houses, naval and
military officers, clergymen, sehool.mastersj
and officers Of public institutions, all assisteY
in supplying this information. By this large
array of workers the whole of the population :
returns of Great Britain ere collected ir one I
day, so that the mere expense of procuring the
returns was comparatively small. The re-
mainder Of the time, from that day to the be-
ginning Of the present month, was occuEi led
" ith arranging the returns for the press, and
in printing them. Seven millions of forsBs
were printed, and the weight Of all the papers
sent from the cehtral office exceeded fifty two
tons. The most striking and important ins
formation which it contains is the certain fact
of the continual increase Of the people since
1901, whence the practice of taking decimal
census commenced. Prior to that time the
number of people was conJectural, or ascer-
tained by the loosest and m,st vague calcula-
ton At the close of the eighteenth century,
it was supposed that the population doubled
in one hundred and sixty years. Earlier re-
cords, however, very. concusively show that
the population took the whole of the fifteenth,
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or three
hundred years. to double itself. Of the pro-
gress Of population previous to the ifteentlr
century, nothing satisfactory is known. The
best writers upon the subject have concluded
that, at the time of the couqaest, the popdla..
ton of England and Wales did not exceed
100000, !" of whom" says Sharan Turnet,,
&" "nearly three .fourths were in slate of slave,
nv, and nothing could have broken their bonds
but such e. ents as the Norman conquest and
the civil wars which, it excited and tostered"
In 1901 Great Britain, which had then been
peopled at least twenty centuries, contained
population Of l09l7 4S3 persons in ls5l,the
population is ascertained TO have been 2l, ,l21,-
967-bcing nearly double of what it was in
1901; therefore, during the fifty Intervening
ears the increase alone was very nearly as
much as the aggregate population which; had
accumulated in twenty centuries. Thus the
population has done that during the last fifty
years which the eleven centuries between the
landing Of julius Caesar and William the Con.
queror, had scarcely accomplished. AT! the
same time it might easily be shown, that the
wealth of the country has increased faster
than its population. The 81 ,l2l,96 pe6pein
Great Britain are very unequalIy dispersed. In
England and Wales they are, at an average
distance asunder of los yards. In London
they are within ID yards Of each other. Iii
East London there are ls5,75l persons TO a
square mile; in the district of Bellihghan,,
Northumberland, there are only Is to square.
mile, or in London the population of square
mile is more than ten thousand times greater
than that of Belingham. In the towns the,
people are so persons toa square acre, in the
country there are 5 s acres to each person.
Placing three persons in every square yard,
the whole population might be placed in ,476
acres. In Great Britain there are Sl5 towns
containing l0,566,2ss persons, land iO;405, ,179
dwell in what, for the sake Of distinction, is
always called the country"