120 REPOR?T—1852. 
shoe-makers, 16s. 6d.; carpenters, 27s. 4d.; cabinet-makers, 20s. 3d.; masons, 
18s. 9d.; confectioners, 21s. 9d.; milliners, 20s. 3d.; laundresses, 12s. 3d. It was 
found that 950 women earned less than 6¢. per diem; 27,452 males and 100,050 
females earned 6d. to 2s. 5d.; 157,216 men and 626 women earned 2s. 5d. to 4s.; and 
10,393 more than 4s. 
On the Progress and Extent of Steamboat Building in the Clyde. 
By Joun Srrane, LL.D. 
No business during the last fifty years had exhibited so much progress in the 
West of Scotland as that of steamboat building. It was a manufacture of home 
production, the materials being within themselves, and requiring skill in every de- 
partment, the remuneration was higher than in the ordinary manufactures of the 
country ; it, in fact, created the districts in which it was established, and gave con- 
stant employment to the industrious. It was just forty years since the Comet made 
its first trip from Glasgow to Greenock. ‘The Comet was only 30 tons burthen, 
and its engine was but 3 horse-power. Dr. Strang then proceeded to trace the dif- 
ferent forms in which steam-vessels had been built, and paid a just tribute to Henry 
Bell, the first man who rendered steam available for navigation purposes. In refer- 
ence to the progress of the trade of steamboat building on the Clyde, he showed 
that in the year ending June 1852, the number and tonnage of steamers engaged in 
traffic on the Clyde were 93 vessels, of 11,992 tons; the increase on regularly em- 
ployed vessels on the river was 26, and in tonnage 5301 tons. But that gave no 
idea of the magnitude of the steamboat building and marine engine making. During 
the last seven years, there have been constructed, or are constructing, in Glasgow 
and neighbourhood, 123 vessels, 122 of which were iron, 80 paddle, and 43 screw, 
consisting of 200 wooden tonnage, 70,441 iron tonnage; 6610 horse-power engines 
for wooden hulls; 22,539 horse-power for iron hulls; and 4720 horse-power en- 
gines for vessels not built in the Clyde. At Greenock and Port Glasgow, during the 
last seven years, there have been constructed, or are constructing, 66 steam-vessels, 
13 of which are wood and 53 of iron, 25 being paddles and 41 screws; the gross 
tonnage being 47,202 tons. At Dumbarton 58 of iron, 20 paddles and 38 screws, 
having a tonnage of 29,761. It would be seen that the wooden hulls are fast giving 
place to those of iron, and the screw is more patronized than the paddle. The pro- 
portion in 1852 was 73 iron against 4 of wood, and of screws to paddles it is as 43 to 
30. Dr. Strang then exhibited the amount of money expended in this branch of 
trade, and the quantity of employment it gives. Both were enormous; taking the 
last seven years of building on the Clyde at £4,650,652, and the employed at Dum- 
barton, Greenock, Port Glasgow, and Glasgow, at 10,820 persons at annual wages 
of £450,112, without reference to the very large body of joiners, painters, carvers, 
giders, upholsterers, sail-makers employed by this trade. 


On the Census and Condition of the Island of Bombay. 
By Lieut.-Colonel Syxes, F.R.S. 
The author observed that on the night of the 1st of May 1849, the government 
obtained a census, as to population and as to the distinctive castes into which the 
population was divided. The entire population of the island, which is only seven 
miles in length and not more than twenty miles in circumference, was 569,119. 
Of this number, 354,090 were males, and 212,029 females. The Hindoos com- 
prise more than one-half of the population. The Mussulmans are more nume- 
rous than the Parsees, the descendants of the ancient fire-worshipers; who, even 
in the present day, observe the old form of worshiping the sun, and the old cere- 
mony of exposing their dead as food to fowls of the air. They construct towers, 
on the top of which the dead bodies are placed. The Parsees have newspapers, 
printed in the Guzerat language; and on one occasion they published a life of Mo- 
hammed, with an engraving or likeness of him. The Mussulmans, regarding this as 
a caricature of their prophet, rose against the Parsees, and threatened to exterminate 
them. The feud was only put a stop to by the intervention of the military. The 
Europeans, Indo-Europeans, native Christians and Jews are 20,426; and all are 
subject to the same social and political influences and laws. In the Bombay tables 
