108 REPORT — 1851. 



to account for this remarkable state of Ireland, — tliat there were thousands of able- 

 bodied labourers unable to get employment, thousands more on scanty wages of 6rf. 

 and 8rf. a day, millions of acres of improveable land lying wholly waste, millions more 

 badly cultivated, whilst more than 20,000 capitalists, all Irishmen, found it for their 

 interest to lend 38,000,000/., at about 3^ per cent, to the government of the richest 

 country in the world. 



071 the Injluence of Discoveries in Science and Works of Art in developing 

 the Condition of a People, as indicated hy the Census Operations of the 

 United States. By J. C. G. Kennedy. 



The author stated that the Government of the United States had adopted the best 

 system, yet made available by any people, for eliciting those facts necessary for the 

 understanding of their true condition. The United States were the first to incorporate 

 the principle with their fundamental law. Other nations had taken censuses pre- 

 vious to tliem, but the object of such was mainly to learn their own availability in 

 a military point of view, or to know what amount of imposition might with safety 

 be placed on estates so as barely to preserve and not entirely destroy them ; but the 

 Government of the United States was actuated solely by the desire to know the true 

 condition of the people, in order to legislate with wisdom, and to know in what 

 things to encourage continuance, what error to abate, what abuse to correct. He 

 showed, that in 1790 they confined their inquiries to the number of the people of 

 different colours and condition, as free and slave; twenty years after they included 

 statistics relative to agriculture, manufactures and commerce ; now at the distance 

 of sixty years, they include, by a law made permanent, a collection of nearly all those 

 facts the development of which will illustrate their exact condition, as to numbers, 

 white, black, and mulatto, male and female, free and slave, at every age. The 

 present census, when fully com|)iled, will give the number of families, the number of 

 dwelling-houses, and the occupations, professions and trades of all persons; the 

 birthplace of each individual, the number married, widowed and single, the number 

 attending school, the number unable to read and write, the blind, deaf and dumb, 

 the insane, the idiotic, the paupers and convicts. With reference to the slave po- 

 pulation, they take the ages, sex, colour, the number voluntarily manumitted, the 

 number who have manumitted themselve.s, with the deaf and dumb, blind, insane, 

 and idiotic. They take an enumeration also of those who have died, their age, sex, 

 colour, condition, birthplace, profession or occupation, disease or cause of death, and 

 the number of days ill. In connexion with these statistics, they procure an account 

 from each county in the United States of its geological formation, its soil, rocks, 

 minerals, mountains, marshes, rivers, timber; its date of settlement, its date of 

 organization, the place of nativity of its first settlers, its canals, plank turnpikes, and 

 railroads, telegraph wires, banking institutions, insurance offices, their capital and 

 dividends. 



They enumerate the acres of improved and unimproved land belonging to each 

 farmer, its value, the value of his farming implements and machinery, the numbers 

 of each variety of live stock, its value and the product of his farm, specifying the 

 quantity of each variety. They enumerate the various manufactures and trades, 

 with the amount of capital invested in the business, the quantity and kind of raw 

 material used, the value of each, the kind of power used, the number of male and 

 female hands employed, the wages paid, and the various productions in quantity, 

 kind, and value. 'I'hey take the aggregate value of all personal and real estate of 

 each county, the kind and amount of taxes, the number of colleges, academies and 

 schools, the teachers and taught, with the revenues. They take an account of the 

 libraries, newspapers, and churches, with their number, character, circulation, and 

 value respectively. 



These elementary facets, it was contended, formed the only true basis of knowledge 

 with respect to a people, and that while they illustrated the exact condition of that 

 people in wealth, numbers, natural increase, health, longevity, and general comfort 

 in different locations at the same moment, they were so taken as to admit of com- 

 binations of interesting tabular arrangements rich and varied, for the use of the mo- 

 ralist, philosopher and statist of all countries. 



