CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



English village shewing, in these respects, a beauty 

 not to be easily found elsewhere. The peasantry 

 of the south of England are courteous in manner, 

 more so than the peasantry in the north ; but 

 those in the north are shrewder, and in intellect 

 more like their Scotch brethren. 



If the Englishman is semi-maniacal in pursuit 

 of wealth, it must be conceded that he makes a 

 free and generous use of it when acquired. His 

 fortune made, he does not wish his sons to tread 

 the same path of drudgery over which he has 

 manfully toiled he gives them a liberal education, 

 sends them to Oxford or Cambridge, and hopes 

 to see them dignitaries of the bar, the church, or 

 the state. In no other country are the minutiae 

 of social culture held so essential as in England 

 to admission to the society of the well-born and 

 well-educated. An Englishman may be rich, 

 clever, handsome, and generally socially attractive, 

 yet, if he calls a house ' an 'ouse,' or uses a knife 

 when a fork is the proper implement, he may as 

 well try to climb to the moon, as to scale the 

 barrier between him and cultivated society in 

 England. One of the most distinctive character- 

 istics of the Englishman is his fondness for the 

 privity and sanctity of his home a name which 

 has hardly an equivalent in any other language. 

 This feeling finds expression in the following 

 verses of Mrs Hemans : 



The stately homes of England, 



How beautiful they stand, 

 Amidst their tall ancestral trees, 



O'er all the pleasant land ! 

 The deer across their greensward bound, 



Through shade and sunny gleam ; 

 And the swan glides by them with the sound 



Of some rejoicing stream. 



The merry homes of England, 



Around their hearths by night, 

 What gladsome looks of household love 



Meet in the ruddy light ! 

 The blessed homes of England, 



How softly on their bowers, 

 Is laid the holy quietness 



That breathes from Sabbath hours ! 



The cottage homes of England, 



By thousand^ on her plains, 

 They are smiling o'er the silvery brooks, 



And round the hamlet fanes. 

 Through glowing orchards forth they peep, 



Each from its nook of leaves ; 

 And fearless there the lowly sleep, 



As the bird beneath their eaves. 



The free, fair homes of England, 



Long, long, in hut and hall, 

 May hearts of native proof be reared 



To guard each hallowed walL 

 And green for ever be the groves, 



And bright the flowery sod, 

 Where first the child's glad spirit loves 



Its country and its God. 



Increase of Population. The population of 

 England in the time of the Plantagenet sovereigns 

 is believed to have been little more than two 

 millions. It has been estimated at 5,500,000 in 

 1696. The progress during the greater part of 

 the eighteenth century was slow ; the amount in 

 1760 is supposed to have been about 6,500,000. 

 In 1801, for the first time, a regular census was 



228 



taken ; and this has been repeated once in ten* 

 years ever since, giving the following results : 



1801 9.156.17' 



1811 10,454,529 



1821 12,172,664 



1831 14,051,986 



1841 

 1851 



1861 

 1871 , 



16,033,198 



18,054,170 



20,066,394 



22,712,266 



The increase of the population has been muchu 

 greater in the towns than in the country ; and 

 this tide, setting from the country to the towns,, 

 still continues. Thus the sixty-one principal cities- 

 of England and Wales, which in 1801 contained 

 rather less than a fourth of the entire population,, 

 contained in 1851 above a third of the entire 

 population. In 1851, the whole town and country 

 populations of England were almost exactly equal ;. 

 in 1861, the town population was not far from 

 being three-fifths of the entire population ; while, 

 in 1871, it bore to that of the country the ratio of 

 62 to 38. In the last of these years, the 103 prin- 

 cipal towns contained more inhabitants than the 

 whole of England and Wales together in 1801. 



NATIONAL INDUSTRY AND GENERAL WEALTH. 



No country in the world probably gives to its- 

 people greater natural advantages for the getting, 

 of wealth than England does. Its soil and climate 

 give it luxuriant pasturage and abundant harvests ; 

 its rivers and harbours, its vast mineral wealth, 

 and compactness of resource, enable it to take the 

 lead in commerce ; while the climate incites to- 

 labour, by rendering an indolent life enjoyable 

 perhaps under brighter skies intolerable. Rail- 

 ways and free-trade, added to these causes, have 

 created a commerce and a wealth such as have 

 never before been known in the world. Referring 

 the reader for further detail to the article CON- 

 STITUTION AND RESOURCES OF THE BRITISH 

 EMPIRE, we here give the following as illustrative 

 of this subject : 



Agriculture. According to parliamentary 

 papers, the total number of returns for separate 

 holdings of agricultural land, exclusive of allot- 

 ments, obtained in 1873, amounted to 422,655 for 

 England, 57,517 for Wales, and 80,857 for Scot- 

 land, and to 561,029 for the whole of Great 

 Britain. 'The total acreage,' says the Report, 

 'under crops, fallow, and grass, in 1873, divided 

 by the total number of returns obtained, shews 

 that the average extent of land for each holding 

 was 56 acres in England, 46 acres in Wales, 56 acres 

 in Scotland.' In Ireland, it was 26 acres. ' The 

 return,' continues the Report, 'shews that there 

 were, in 1873, as many as 246,000 allotments of 

 land in Great Britain, of which 242,000 were in 

 England, 1700 in Wales, and 2100 in Scotland. . . . 

 The total extent of land let in garden allotments 

 in Great Britain, in 1873, was 59,631 acres, which 

 shews almost exactly an average of one quarter of 

 an acre for each allotment ; and the average for 

 England is the same.' By the table No. i, the 

 total acreage, 'under all kinds of crops, bare 

 fallow, and grass,' in 1873, was, in England, 

 2 3>893,558; in Wales, 2,647,080; corn crops (in- 

 cluding pease and beans), 7,501,713 and 536,786 ^ 

 green crops, 2,749,318 and 133,232 ; bare fallow, 

 649,374 and 34,730 ; grass, clover, &c. under 

 rotation, 2,678,311 and 360,555; and permanent 

 pasture, 10,237,814 and 1,581,585. The 'acreage of 

 orchards, or of arable or grass land used also for 





