150 REPORT—1850. 
was the state of the Skibbereen district before 1846? The Zimes Commissioner had 
visited it in 1845, and described the people as being then in the most abject state of 
destitution. Hence it followed that the real sources of the calamities which the people 
suffered were the distress and wretched system of agriculture which prevailed before 
the famine. Had the people not been reduced to the yerge of staryation,—had their 
wages not been at the lowest point consistent with human existence before that time, 
—the failure of the potato would, as in other districts, have caused privation only, and 
not death. The next inguiry was, To what causes are the wretched agriculture and 
consequent distress before 1845 to be ascribed? To solve this question, Mr. Mill had 
started the theory that peasant-rents fixed by competition was the foundation of the 
economic evils of Ireland. He proposed to test Mr, Mill’s theory, and to contrast 
with the conclusion to which he had been led, that the state of the law rorpecting 
land was the cause of distress,—the facts respecting this district he had collecte 
from a petition in the case of the late Lord Audley, in the Encumbered Estates Court, 
The Audley estate included a large tract of land lying between Skull and Skibbereen, 
The entire of this estate was held by a middleman, whose lease would expire in 1854, 
so that in 1845 and 1846 no occupier had any interest exceeding nine years in the 
land ; so that neither middleman nor occupiers were able to improve the estate. As 
to interest of the head landlord, it appeared that as far back as 1829 the incumbrances 
on the Audley estate had far exceeded its value, being £25,000 on a rental of less than 
£600 a year; that they increased rapidly, so as to amount to £89,400, exclusive of 
interest and law costs, at Lord Audley’s death in 1837; and that the interest and law 
costs increased the charges against the property in 1846 to the enormous amount of 
£167,300, on a rental of £577 a year. It appeared that from Lord Audley’s death 
in 1837, to the present hour, instead of there being one landlord to deal with the pro- 
perty, there were eighty encumbrancers, whose consent was necessary to enable any- 
thing to be done. Hence the folly of speaking of competition in such a case when 
this state of the property rendered real competition impossible. The ceconomic eyils 
of Ireland, in his opinion, did not arise from peasant rents fixed by competition, and 
consequently those evils could be removed by having peasant rents fixed by law. Of 
those causes that were within human control, the chief cause of distress in Ireland, 
he thought, was the state of the law with regard to land. The laws respecting pro- 
perty in land, he stated, were defective in these particulars :—1st, in opposing impe- 
diments to the free sale of land, and encouraging instead terminable leases; 2nd, in 
denying security to the capital of tenants, by providing that, in the absence of con- 
tracts, improvements shall not belong to the improyer; 3rd, in impeding the search 
for encumbrances, by maintaining a complicated and defective system of registration 
of debts and charges affecting land; and 4th, in the want of simple, cheap and ex- 
peditious forms of 7 procedure for the enforcement of debts and contracts affecting land, 
On the Geographical Distribution of Disease, as indicating the Connexion 
between Natural Phenomena and Health and Longevity. By A. ΚΕΙΤΗ 
JounstTon, F.R.S.E. . 
In this paper, which was illustrated by maps and diagrams, the author gave gene- 
ral views of the distribution of endemic disease over the globe, showing, by means of 
colours, the regions visited by particular diseases, and the proportionate amount of 
mortality occasioned by each among natives and Europeans. He explained, by means 
of diagrams, the effect of climate in the production and extension of disease, as exhi- 
bited in the moist and marshy districts of tropical regions; that, for example, remit 
tent fever increases progressively with the increase of temperature from north to south, 
as strikingly shown by the returns of health in the army of the United States of 
America. He stated, that in order to judge of the effects of climate, it is necessary 
to compare the amount of sickness and mortality among the indigenous population of 
a country with that of strangers to the soil; that in India the ayerage amount of mor- 
tality among European troops is nearly three times as great as among natives. He 
then drew attention to the remarkable difference between the health of the army as 
compared with that of the navy, and with the civil population of a country. After 
