ENGLAND AND WALES. 



! 



rtr 



fruit-trees,' was 143,295 and 3052. The ' acreage of 

 woods, coppices, and plantations,' was 1,325,765 

 .and 126,823. The number of horses was 979,012 

 and 120,273; of cattle, 4,173,635 and 642,857; of 

 sheep, 19,169,851 and 2,966,862; of pigs, 2,141,417 

 and 211,174. The total uncultivated area of 

 England (woods being considered cultivated) is 

 7,378,000 ; of which 2,745,000 is in the counties 

 of Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, 

 the North and West Ridings of Yorkshire, and in 

 Devon. The total area of England is 50,933 

 square miles, or 32,597,398 acres ; of Wales, 7378 

 square miles, or 4,721,823 acres. 



Mines. The total value of coal raised in the 

 United Kingdom, according to evidence laid 

 ibefore a Committee of the House of Commons, 

 was, in 1872, 123,386,758, of which value there 

 was used in the manufacture of iron 38,228,875. 

 he total iron produced in the United Kingdom 

 as, in 1871, 16,334,884 tons of which Scotland 

 produced 3,000,000 ; Ireland, 107,734 ; England, 

 13,227,150. The total value was 7,670,572. 

 Tin is produced from only two counties, Corn- 

 all and Devon. In 1868, the total value was 

 901,400; total weight, 9300 tons. Copper comes 

 rincipally from the same counties. In 1868, the 

 ield of pure metal was 157,335 tons; value, 

 761,602. The total value of the mineral produce 

 f Great Britain in 1868 was ,43,525,524, 

 Trade. The value of imports into the United 

 ingdom was, in 1862, 225,716,976; in 1872, 

 354,693,624: of exports, in 1862, 166,168,134 ; 

 1872, 314,588,834. The parliamentary returns 

 o not enable us to assign their shares in these 

 .st totals to each division of the United King- 

 om, but readers may form an estimate from the 

 .ct, that the total amount of custom-duties paid 

 by England, for the year ending 3ist December 

 1872, was 16,095,678 ; by Scotland, ,2,498,805 ; 

 and by Ireland, 1,944,065 ; England's proportion 

 relatively to that of Scotland, as 6-44 is to I ; and 

 xelatively to that of Ireland, as 8-27 is to I. Of 

 the English total, 9,785,126 was collected in 

 London, .3,030,843 in Liverpool, and 1,027,769 

 in Bristol. The total number of trading-vessels 

 belonging to England, at 3ist December 1872, was 

 20,097; the total tonnage, 4,510,556; number of 

 the crew, 193,506. The number belonging to the 

 United Kingdom, at same date, was 25,083 ; 

 tonnage, 5,681,963 ; crew, 244,994. Some notion 

 of the enormous increase of one or two of the 

 leading branches of British commerce, in recent 

 years, may be got from the following facts. In 

 1857, the declared value of cotton yarn exported 

 was .8,700,589 ; and of cotton manufactures, 

 30,372,831. In 1871, these values were respec- 

 tively 15,054,742 and 57,635,570. In 1857, the 

 declared value of woollen yarn was 2,752,386 ; of 

 -woollen and worsted manufactures, 10,706,023 ; 

 of iron and steel, 15,133,388. In 1871, these 

 values were respectively 6,101,777, ; 2 7>!84,7O4, 

 .and 26,149,136. 



Summary for 1880. The total acreage of land 

 \mder crops, bare fallow, and grass throughout the 

 United Kingdom in the year 1880 was 47,586,700 

 -acres (47,646,112 in 1881). The total acreage 

 under wheat was 3,065,895 acres. The total value 

 of the mineral produce of the United Kingdom for 

 1880 was 74,094,638 (62,395,000 being for coal). 

 The total value of imports in 1880 was 41 1,229,565 

 {in 1881, 397,022,489) ; the value of exports in 



1880 was 286,414,466 (in 1881, 297,082,775). 

 Cotton manufactures were exported to the value of 

 75>56oooo ; woollen manufactures, 20,600,000, 

 The total value of real property assessed under the 

 property and income tax in 1880 was 152,553,738 

 in England and Wales; 19,582,445 in Scotland; 

 and 13,241,587 in Ireland. The railway capital 

 of the United Kingdom in 1881 was 831,127,312. 



ENGLISH SCENERY. 



English scenery has many features which give 

 it a poetic beauty of its own. We do not refer, in 

 so saying, to the specially noted landscapes of 

 England to those of Wales or of Cumberland 

 but to those of the low and fertile midland and 

 southern districts, and of the Plain of York ; 

 whether these be green with their dense summer 

 foliage, golden with harvests, ruddy with orchards, 

 or dark and grimy as that of the Black Country 

 itself. 'With unabated bounty,' says Thomas 

 Carlyle, ' the land of England blooms and 

 grows ; waving with yellow harvests ; thick 

 studded with workshops, industrial implements, 

 with fifteen millions of workers, understood to be 

 the strongest, the cunningest, and the willingest 

 our earth ever had.' Of the Black Country, Mr 

 W. White (All Round the Wrekiri), writes : 'The 

 name is eminently descriptive, for blackness 

 everywhere prevails ; the ground is black, the 

 atmosphere is black, and the underground is 

 honeycombed by mining galleries, stretching in 

 utter blackness for many a league. The scene is 

 marvellous, and to one who beholds it for the first 

 time by night, terrific. Then the roaring furnaces 

 are seen for miles around, pouring forth their 

 fierce throbbing flames like volcanoes ; then the 

 hundreds of chimneys of iron-works display their 

 blazing crests or sheafs of fiery tongues ; then the 

 dull gleam of heaps of roasting ironstone makes 

 you fancy that the old globe itself is here smoulder- 

 ing away ; overhead, dense clouds of smoke reflect 

 a lurid light, rolling fitfully before the wind ; while 

 the hissing and rushing of steam, the clang and 

 clatter of machinery, the roaring blasts, and the 

 shock of ponderous hammer-strokes, all intensified 

 by the presence of night, complete an effect which 

 amazes alike the eye and the ear. By day, as the 

 train speeds across, you hear the same noises, and 

 see fires divested of their nightly terrors, yet find 

 it difficult to believe that a scene of so much 

 havoc represents prosperous industry, and one of 

 the most important departments of British trade. 

 Perhaps for the first time you become aware of 

 the omnipotence of coal and iron. You catch 

 glimpses of smoking heaps, of muddy canals, 

 complications of locks, bridges, tramways ; boats 

 moving, trains rolling, of coal-pits where the iron 

 arm projects from the little engine-house, working 

 busily up and down, while the whimseys creak as 

 the long rope passes over ; of abandoned work- 

 ings, where office and engine-house are in ruin, 

 and scraps of ragged hedgerow look very miser- 

 able, and the tall posts stand up skeleton-like, and 

 fragments of machinery lie about devoured by 

 rust. . . . And amid all this are the cottages of 

 artisans and miners ; English homes, whence sun 

 and stars are seen darkly, situate in a region devoid 

 of repose and beauty, which look as if smitten by 

 desolation, notwithstanding that here and there 

 grow patches of wheat and plots of potato. And 



