River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1876-10-19
What the Irish Doomsday Book Discloses.

/ From the London Times.
The population of Ireland. by the
| census of 1871, was 5,409, 435. The
| inhabited houses are $50, 1893. The to-
| tai number of owners of land 90, 15S.
For every | 900 persons there are thir-
| teen owners of land, and seventy-two
owners of land for every 1000 inhab-
| tied houses. OF the owners of land,
less than half-that is 80, ll4-have
less that an acre; 32,6l4 an acre or
more. Ii is evident that the "land
less than an acre" represents general
~ a house, with or without bit of gar
den for the aggregate of these small
properties, though of considerable
value, covers little ground. While the
1904 owners of an acre and upwards
have 20, l50,6l2 acres, with rateable
valuation of fl2,052, 800, the SO, IA
of less than an acre have only 1905
acres, but of rateable value of $780,
449. The majority of "lrish owners
of land could be comprised in the
area OF many an English parish known
as a good-sized village or small market
town. 1t is only when we come to the
fifth figure-that is, the thousands
that the aggregate properties of half
the landowners affects the total acre
age. The diSprOportiOn is l>y no means
uniform in the several provinces. In
Leinster, while 1000 owners own f.
500, 292 acres, 1864 own no more
than $685., $50 acres ; i'll Munster 1877
persons own $685.. $50 acres, 0, l0l only
2,5ll acres ; in Ulster 1856 own s.
257 1858 acres, l0.036 only 500 acres;
in COnnaught2 >, 94l own (, U.s., 207 acres.
while 1922 have properties covering
altogether 424 acres, or only about a
ten thousanth part of the total terri
tory possessed by the more fortunate
moiety of Connaught landowners.
Even in England and Scotland the dis
proportion is so startling as SO suggest
the question whether it is worth while
to count as an owner of land the man
who stands simply on his bit of cab
bage garden or within the walls of his
cottage, and whether the fact of there
being some thousands so fortunate as
to call their houses tht III own, or to
have one at THEN disposal, at all af-
fects any calculation having regard to
the division and cultivation of the soil.
In England and Scotland there are
about a million of So-called owners of |
land, but while little more than a
twentieth of them divide sevcnty-fve |
million acres, the remaining mass own |
altogether no more than about four |
million acres. This disproportion will |
be regarded with very different eyes |
according as we approach fact which |
must be admitted to be startling. Al |
most everybody has INDUCED in some |
dream of life comprising the posses |
sion of land, to be won by honest toll
or dropped into by luck and what all |
long for comes to be considered as a
natural wish that ought to be easy of /
realization. But daily experience /
leads to the conclusion that absolute |
ownership is an accident of no great
value in comparison with the most |
usual and practical enjoyment.
In England one person in twenty of
the population is an owner of land ; in /
Ireland, one person in seventy-nine.
In England the proportion of owners
Of land to inhabited houses is one to
four in Ireland, one to fourteen.