TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 91 
treatment of the insane, however, is utterly impossible. The author strongly con- 
demned the system of confining lunatics in houses of industry, or, which is still worse, 
in gaols. By an act passed in the first session of the present reign, power is given to 
two justices of the peace, acting under the advice of a physician, to commit to gaol, 
or confine in a lunatic asylum, any oné thought to be in a state of mind threatening 
mischief. It would seem that this statute has operated more widely than could have 
been atiticipated by its framers. From the Sixteenth Report of the Inspectors-Gene- 
ral of Prisons, it appears, that so recently as the year 1837, there were but thirty- 
seven insane patients confined in the gaols of Ireland. But in 1840 the number of 
lunatics confined in the gaols of Ireland had increased to 110; and within the last 
two years the number has doubled, there being now 240 lunatics and idiots in the 
gaols of Ireland. There are also 471 idiots and lunatics at present confined in sixty- 
nine workhouses. 


At the opening of the Section on Tuesday, the Secretary informed the meeting 
that in consequence of a communication which had been received from his Excelleney 
the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Capt. Lareom,; R.E., would commence business by 
laying the Report of the Census of Ireland for 1841 on the table, and giving an 
account of the manner in which it had been taken. He then reada note from his 
Excellency’s Secretary; which stated that his Excellency, desirous of promoting 
science, had allowed a copy of the unpublished Census of 1841 to be forwarded to 
the Association. 
Capt. Larcom said, that he was appointed in 1841 a Commissioner of the Census in 
Ireland, and as the publication of the Ordnance Memoirs was then suspended, he 
seized the opportunity of collecting statistical information. Under the head of social 
economy the cominissioners included every matter of interest that bore on the state of 
the country and its inhabitants; and the result is, that the present census has more 
the aspect of a statistical document than returns of the kind have had before. Care 
has been takeri to distinguish between natural families and the domestic groups formed 
of the former with associated inmates, ‘The dwellings, too, have been carefully 
classified ; and the people generally have been considered, not under the usual head 
of agriculturists and manufacturers, but under the three heads, workmen, master 
workmen, and employers. The chief results of the census are, in numbers, as fol- 
lows :—The population of Ireland is 8,175,124, of whom 4,019,576 are males, and 
4,155,548 females. These persons live in 1,472,739 social families, and are dwelling 
in 1,328,839 houses. 
Of these persons 2,765,212 males ‘ 
. 2,662,023 females \ are unmarried. 
1,142,628 males ‘ 
1,181,095 females } eae yaa 
And 111,786 males P 
312,420 females \ Bae whaGwen: 
The edueation varies from the cotnty of Antrim, in which there are twenty-one per 
cent. of males, and twenty-three per cent. of females who can neither read nor write, 
to the county of Mayo,'in which there are seventy-three per cent. of males, and eighty- 
seven per cent. of females, in the like deplorable state of ignorance. ‘The number of 
houses compared with the population, does not appear at first sight very dispropor- 
tionate, but when the houses are divided into classes, according to their quality and 
the number of families they respectively accommodate, the result is, that nearly half 
the families of the rural population, and more than one-third of the civic population; 
are found to be living in the lowest state, viz. a cabin of a single room. In the next 
class, but little superior in comfort, are about the same proportion; and the number 
living in the better classes are but sixteen per cent. in the towns, and thirty per cent. 
in the civic districts. The tables of ages are much disturbed by the amount of emi- 
gration for the last twenty years; which amount of emigration is very uncertain, from 
the great number of Irish who sail from English ports, where, of course, no separate 
registry of them is kept; but from the best information attainable, it amounted, 
between 1821 and 1841, to 538,285; and 39,179 recruits for the army have been raised 
in Ireland during that time. It was necessary to inquire into these numbers, in order 
to account for the apparently small increase of the population during the last ten 
