ON THE VITAL STATISTICS OF LARGE TOWNS IN SCOTLAND. 143 



clergymen who celebrate the marriages, are bound by law strictly to ad- 

 here. Were records of marriages as strictly enforced as those of the pro- 

 clamations, we would have been enabled to avoid errors to which our present 

 statements are liable. 



A uniform and well-digested plan of registers for England, Scotland and 

 Ireland, and also for exhibiting the information deduced from them, would 

 obviously be of high importance ; and the results obtained by this uniform 

 plan, by showing the effects produced on the amount of births, marriages, 

 disease and death, by the condition of the people in different states of so- 

 ciety, whether of town or country, rich or poor, of sedentary or of laborious 

 employments, might ultimately lead to salutary laws for the amelioration of 

 the condition of the people. 



The system adopted in the registers of marriages in England, and the 

 mode of publishing the amount of individuals married in the large towns, do 

 not admit of an accurate comparison with the amount of individuals married 

 in towns similarly situated as to local circumstances in Scotland. 



The extent to which prudential motives operate on the respectable portion 

 of the mechanics and artizans of towns in prevention of early marriages, 

 appears to be considerable. The desire to establish themselves first in com- 

 fortably furnished houses is alone a sufficient check. But if we look to the con- 

 dition of that numerous class of the inhabitants of towns who have sunk- 

 more especially of late years — into a reckless state of poverty, and where the 

 prevalence of fever and other diseases, together with a limited supply of work 

 by which they can earn a livelihood, have reduced masses of them to an 

 extreme state of wretchedness, we shall find a very different feeling. In the 

 large towns of Scotland this wretchedness is known to exist not only from 

 personal inquiry, but it has been ably pointed out in late publications*. 

 So far from it operating as a check, the very hopelessness of their condition 

 would seem to make this class blind and callous to consequences ; and unions 

 are formed which ultimately can only enhance their sufferings. 



The importance of obtaining correct statistical information, therefore, as to 

 the amount of annual marriages among the different classes of society requires 

 no further illustration ; and though we are aware of the caution to be ob- 

 served in coming to any conclusion from the facts yet obtained and detailed 

 in the foregoing pages (imperfect as the system of registration may be from 

 which our data are obtained), yet these data prove that the greatest amount 

 of marriages is found to take place in those localities where the greatest 

 proportion of the wretchedly poor are congregated together ; and this fact 

 goes far to strengthen the opinion that the diminution of destitution, by 

 raising a great mass of the town population above their present reckless state 

 of poverty, would prove a salutary check upon early marriages, by giving a 

 taste for the comforts and decencies of life \. 



* See the work of Dr. Alison, Professor of the Institutes of Medicine in the University of 

 Edinburgh ; of the Hon. Archibald Alison, Sheriff of Lanarkshire ; and of the Rev. Dr. Chal- 

 mers, Professor of Divinity in Edinburgh, on the poor. The publications of C. R. Baird, 

 Esq., Captain Miller and the late Dr. Cowan of Glasgow, Mr. Wilson of Aberdeen, Sheriff 

 Barclay of Perth, the Rev. Mr. Lewis of Dundee, Mr. Simons, Dr. Taylor, and many others. 



t It may be noticed in proof of the effect of habitual destitution on marriage and population, 

 that the handloom weavers, the poorest inhabitants of Glasgow, are known to marry earlier 

 than any other class. This fact is stated by Mr. C. R. Baird, in his ' Report on the General 

 and Sanatory Condition of the Working Classes and the Poor in Glasgow.' And 455 

 weavers outof work, whose cases were examined and reported to the Association for Inquiring 

 into the Pauperism of Scotland, in Edinburgh, by Captain Miller of Glasgow, had among them 

 1851 children. Many other striking examples to the same effect are stated by Dr. Alison in 

 his work on the Poor-Law of Scotland* 



