Registers of the Popiilation. 105 



Registers of the Population, and its Work. 



Mr. Wimpey writes 'On Economical Registers/ and 

 advocates a general directory of all the people in Great 

 Britain, and that all people should have a medal about 

 their person when twelve miles from home as a guarantee 

 of their individuality. We should be as unhappy as a 

 German who carries or must show when required, a 

 Geburtschein, an Impfschein, a Taufschein, and how many 

 more, to show his birth, baptism, confirmation, and all his 

 petty history to a government which delights in small facts. 

 We should like to tell Mr. Wimpey that we can run off a 

 couple of hundred miles and still sleep at home at night. 



The article is curious in another respect because of 

 a sentence on p. 14, vol. i. ' In a fertile country like 

 England, which grows more corn than its inhabitants can 

 consume and of course renders it a commercial article, it 

 is of great importance to ascertain the following facts for 

 the regulation of the exportation of that article. 



' I. What is the annual average yield of corn in England 

 for a series of years ? 



'II. What is the average annual consumption in the same 

 time ? ' 



And Mr. Wimpey has been found right in great part ; 

 we make now a decennial census, and we seek to learn the 

 amount of corn grown in England, although we have not 

 yet arrived at the exactness he desired. 



On Diversions. 



One almost thinks on reading this first volume of 

 memoirs, that the 'early man of Manchester had burst into 

 the world from some previous cave-dwelling and then re- 



