a. ed ee 


TPES meee 

TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 121 
there is nothing to indicate the extent of vagrancy, or the number of houses. One 
great feature is presented in the tables—the excess of males over females. The 
contrary is the case in Europe, where the females are much in excess of the males. 
The disparity between the sexes in India was attributed to the crime of female in- 
fanticide ; and so great was the evil in Kattywar, that the government encouraged 
a marriage fund from which portions might be given with the daughters of the 
chiefs and others, so that the inducement to destroy their infant females might be 
lessened ; and the result has been very satisfactory. In Bombay female infanticide 
never did exist, and the disparity between the sexes is owing to the Persian Gulf and 
Red Sea traders and immigrant labourers leaving their females at home. Among 
the Hindoos the females number 48 percent. ; among the Mussulmans, 48 per cent. ; 
and among the Parsees, 82 per cent. The youth of both sexes in the Parsee popu- 
lation are as 23°4 per cent. of the population; Mussulmans, 17°7 per cent.; and 
Hindoos only 10°8 per cent. Bombay had anciently been considered the grave of 
Europeans—the Sierra Leone of India—owing to the high tides which divided the 
island into six or seven parts; the water formed morasses, giving rise to pestilent 
miasmata; however, means have been taken to prevent the influx of the tides, and 
the best results have followed, in a sanitary point of view. In Great Britain the 
mortality is as one in forty-seven; and it is represented in the tables to be now 
only 2°1 per cent. in Bombay, though the view is thought to be too favourable. 
Statisties of the Deaf and Dumb in Ireland. By W. A. Witve. 
This was an abstract of the Report on the condition of the Deaf and Dumb in 
Ireland taken in connexion with the Census Commission of 1851. Ina series of 
tables amounting to no less than sixteen in number, Mr. Wilde furnished a variety of 
data for judging of the conditions under which this form of permanent disease exists 
and is perpetuated. Among these, were tables showing its proportion to the general 
population, and relative proportion of the sexes affected—their education, and sus- 
ceptibility to education, both literary and industrial—the class of the community 
which the malady chiefly affects—and the localities where it principally prevails— 
with a view to seeing whether geological position, soil, aspect, elevation, humidity, 
dryness, salubrity or insalubrity of climate, density or paucity of population, une 
healthy crowded cities or open fertile plains, acquired disease, hereditary predispo- 
sition, family peculiarity, or the consanguinity of parents, may have conduced to 
the development and propagation of this disease. Mr. Wilde stated generally, that 
while in Europe the average of deaf and dumb was one in 1593, 4449 deaf mutes 
were returned for all Ireland, or one in 1580. 

A short Account of the early Bills of Mortality at Dublin. By W.A.Wi.vE. 

MECHANICAL SCIENCE. 
On Telegraphic Commmunications by Land and Sea. 
By F. C. BAKEWELL. 
Mr. Baxewett took a general review of the progress which has been made in this 
important medium for the transmission of intelligence, and examined the accidents 
which have still interrupted the perfection of the medium, with a view to suggesting 
remedies. The principal remedies suggested referred to the formation of submarine 
telegraphic communication. Instead of employing several thin copper wires enclosed 
in a protecting wire cable, he recommended the use of a strong self-protecting iron 
wire covered with gutta percha. He contended that a single wire might be made to 
answer all present purposes, with suitable arrangements and by employing rapidly 
transmitting instruments, and when more wires became necessary he recommended 
