APPENDIX. 307 



from a paper in the English "Penny Magazine for 

 March, 1837. After premising that, in the year 1837, 

 the number of eggs imported from France into England 

 amounted to 69,000,000, the writer says, " These eggs 

 cannot be obtained from much fewer than 575,000 fowls, 

 each producing 120 eggs on an average, all beyond 

 this number being required for domestic consumption. 

 Assuming the grounds of this calculation to be correct, 

 the 55,000,000 eggs which a writer in a newspaper 

 printed at Arras states to be the amount supplied to 

 England from the Pas de Calais, are the production of 

 458,333 fowls, each of which furnishes ten dozen eggs, 

 imported at a duty of 106?., being a tax to that amount 

 on each fowl. Allowing twelve fowls to each family 

 engaged in supplying the demand for eggs, the number 

 of families thus interested will be 39,861, representing a 

 population of 198,000. In the Pas de Calais, there can 

 scarcely be a larger, population than two families out of 

 every five who are connected with the egg trade ; and 

 if this were ascertained to be the real proportion, the 

 population, not directly engaged, would be 457,000, 

 which, with the 198,000 above mentioned, would com- 

 prise a total population of 665,000, which is the popu- 

 lation of the department, the superfices of which being 

 2,624 square miles. Over this extent of country must 

 those who are engaged in the egg trade keep a vigilant 

 eye, penetrating into every hamlet, and visiting the lone 

 houses which are scattered in this part of France, per- 

 haps more numerously than in any other departments. 

 Some arrangements of a peculiar nature are obviously 

 required to facilitate the transactions of the wholesale 

 dealer, who probably resides at the port whence the eggs 

 are shipped. The services of a subordinate class of 

 dealers are, doubtless, called into activity ; and as it 

 would be a waste of time for each of these to visit every 

 week, or at a stated period, every one of the 39,861 

 houses whence they draw the quantity required, other 

 arrangements of a still more detailed character are 

 necessary, in order to bring the article within grasp." 



The British census returns for 1841 present us with 

 an ad-valorem estimate of the poultry, (of all sorts,) kept 

 in Ireland, the pecuniary value of each fowl beiru? 



