138 REPORT— 1866. 



the improvements he might have effected in the property. No person shall have 

 power to hold another person as tenant, provided such person is willing to pay on 

 the land he may farm for such improvements as have aheady been expended, thus 

 becoming- the proprietor. The result of such a system would be, that no occupier 

 of land would sublet it to a tenant, but farm it himself. Shoidd he have more than 

 he could farm, he would siu'render it for sale, and therefore the farms would be 

 large and productive, and the inhabitants of villages and towns claiming through 

 the corporation such lands as they may require for building purposes, paying of 

 course to the occupier the full value of his improvements, would not, as in England, 

 be crammed into narrow streets (for example, this very town of Nottingham) and 

 miserable cottages, but would have creditable homesteads, which they had been 

 enabled to purchase at a reasonable price, still paying the increased ground-rent to 

 the State on the increased value of the soil. 



On Classification of the various Oecuimtions of the Peoph. By F. J. Wilson. 



On the Dis]_iroportion between the Male and Female Population of some Manu- 

 facturinci and other Toiuns. By the Rev. A. W. Woethington, B.A., of 

 Mansfield. 



The population of England appears by the Census of 1861 to be divided in the 

 proportion of 105 women to 100 men, although 105 males are born to every 100 

 females. But this proportion is not equally distributed through the country. The 

 natm-e of employment differs in different towns and districts ; and as men or 

 women find most ready employment, one or the other predominate in number. 

 Thus in the mining-districts of Newcastle-ou-Tyne, Dudley, "Wolverhampton, and 

 Wakefield ; in the steel-manufacturing town of Sheffield ; in Stafford, where shoes 

 are made; in Stone and Stoke, where pottery is the staple manufacture; in Burton, 

 where brewing is carried on ; in the barrack towns of Canterbury, Winchester, 

 and Colchester, and to a smaller extent in the agricultural districts, such as Bake- 

 well, and the country parts of Nottinghamshire, there is a predominance of men ; 

 while in the manufacturing towns, such as Manchester, Preston and Carlisle, 

 Bradford and Leeds, Worcester, and more notably in Norwich, there is an excess 

 of women. In Nottingham and Radford together there were in 1861 48,424 men 

 and 57,820 women, an extraordinary excess of nearly 10,000 women. This excess 

 is most marked between the ages of 15 and 60. This is also the case in seaport 

 towns, e. g. Plymouth, Yarmouth, King's Lynn, Hull, and Bristol, while in Liver- 

 pool there are far more women than men between the ages of 15 and 45. More 

 women than men live in watering-places, e. g. Bath, Brighton, and Cheltenham. 



This attraction of female labour to manufacturing towns is not likely to dimi- 

 nish, but wiU rather increase, owing to the comparative cheapness of female labour. 

 Its advantage is in the addition to the familj^ income, and the independence it gives 

 to women. But it seems to be attended with considerable e\-ils. Where mai-ried 

 women are emploj'ed from home, or even have work at home, there is a very large 

 increase in the rate of juvenile mortality. This may be partly accounted for, it is 

 true, by the want of sanitary arrangements in large towns ; and in the mining 

 towns, e.g. Dudley, where the rate is very high, it may be owing to ignorance and 

 neglect ; but there can be no doubt that it is very frequently owing to the inability 

 of labom-ing women to give due attention to their children. Wliere immarried 

 women work away from home, and sometimes leaving home to labour in distant 

 towns are compelled to live in lodgings, illegitimacy increases, probably attended 

 with infanticide, even also with the occasional procuring of abortion. Thus the 

 rate of illegitimacy is generally high where there is an excess of women. It is 

 marked m manufacturing towns, and in Nottingham reached the high rate, in 1864 

 (according to the last retm-u of the Registrar-General), of 10 per cent, on the whole 

 number of births ; while in Birmingham, where there is an average proportion of 

 men and women, it is as low as 5 per cent., which is below the general average of 

 the coimty. Again, early marriages are thus generally promoted in manufac- 

 turing towns, though this does not seem to be the case in Nottingham, where the 

 number of women who marry under age is below the general average of the 

 country. 



