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firstly, that the bulk of the emigrants are the healthy men and 

 women in the spring of life, and that those who are left behind 

 have an increased proportion of the aged, the criminal, the decrepit, 

 and of families ojjpressed with numerous young children ; and 

 secondly, that those people who leave, although they perhaps 

 improve their own circumstances and become better customers to 

 the manufacturers of England in general, do not become in any 

 way serviceable to their native county. The emigrants have a 

 right to try to improve their condition, but as those who are left 

 behind are to maintain the worthless and the imbecile who belong 

 equally to all, besides their share in national and local debts, I 

 think the proposing emigrants are asking rather too much when 

 they want us to pay their passage to a foreign country out of the 

 district taxation of Somersetshire. 



The mothers of Somersetshire never fail in their supply, and 

 there is no marked difference in the human fertility of the various 

 districts outside this great Vestal city. The excess of births over 

 deaths in the decennium exceeded a tenth part of the whole popu- 

 lation at the starting point of 1851 in all the Unions of the county, 

 except Bath and Frome. 



The natural increase being constant, and some counties being 

 able to keep their population, why cannot Somersetshire ? We 

 must go no further here than to ask the question ; to rejjly would 

 be to enter a forbidden border-land between social and political 

 themes. If, however, we are to escape the fate of France, where 

 money has largely usurped the place of men, the matter must be 

 taken to heart. 



Of the destination beyond seas of the Somersetshire emigrants 

 we have no certain knowledge. Of those who do not leave England 

 there were no less than 36,000 in London, 1,200 in Liverpool, 700 

 in Manchester, and 1,600 in Yorkshire, making with about 10,000 

 Bcattered over the country, chiefly in the adjacent counties, 49,000 

 natives who have left the county but who remain in England. 



Something must be said of immigrants. Of these the foreigners 

 are insignificant ; about 500 resided in the county, a large pro- 

 portion of whom are French and Italian sailors, the rest are chiefly 

 Bath residents. Of the whole 445,000 people, 361,000 were born 



