TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 667 



of the numbers of bankruptcies in England and the United States, to show that 

 the latest crisis must be assigned either to 1877, or, it may be, to 1878. In 

 either case the theory of decennial variation will be verified as closely as can be 

 expected. 



3. The Definitions of Political Economy. By Professor Maguire. 



4. Some Statistical Researches into the Poor Removal Question, with special 

 reference to the Removal of Persons of Irish Birth from Scotland. By 

 W. Neilson Hancock, LL.D* 



There were 774,310 persons of Irish birth in Great Britain in 1871, of whom 

 no less than 082,000 were of twenty years of age and upwards. As there were 

 only 2,900,000 persons of Irish birth of twenty years of age and upwards in 

 Ireland, those in Great Britain are about one-fifth of the whole— without counting 

 migratory labourers. The number in Scotland of this age, 184,000, is one-tenth of 

 the whole population of that age in Sc< >tland, 1 ,788,000 ; while the number in London, 

 82,900, is only a twentieth of the corresponding figure, 1,789,000. Dr. Alison, in 

 a paper read at the British Association in Belfast in 1852, ascribed mortality of 

 persons of Irish birth in Scotland in part to operation of Scotch poor-law. Dr. 

 Lyon Playfair noticed unhealthiness of persons of Irish birth in Scotland. Amongst 

 the defects in Scotch poor-law noticed by Dr. Alison were the period of residence 

 to protect against removal, still five years, though 'reduced to one year in England 

 in 1865. The defects in the law as to acquiring and losing a settlement, noticed 

 by Dr. Alison, were remedied in England in 1876, but not yet in Scotland. Scotch 

 poor law is in advance of English in allowing questions of chargeability to be 

 adjusted between different localities in Scotland, without a removal, and so con- 

 tains germs of total abolition of removal. In conclusion, I would repeat what I 

 said on this question some seven years ago, in a paper before the Statistical Society 

 of Ireland, — The prestige of our legislation would be strengthened, if we were able 

 to have laws, like those relating to poor removals that affect the labouring classes 

 in the whole three kingdoms, assimilated and reduced to an enlightened and bene- 

 ficent code, by collecting what is best out of each of our laws in England, Scot- 

 land, and Ireland. A large cause of discontent would be removed if we were able 

 to say to the migratory labourers of these kingdoms — "No matter what is your 

 race or place of birth — no matter where you labour — your relations to the State 

 in any calamity that overtakes you will be the same at Belfast, at Glasgow, and at 

 Liverpool — in Dublin, in Edinburgh, and in London." 



5. On the Education and Training of the Insane. By Joseph Lalor, M.D., 

 Resident Medical Superintendent, Richmond District Lunatic Asylum, 

 Dublin. 



I propose to consider 'in this paper some of the general principles on which the 

 education and training of the insane can be dealt with most advantageously; 

 starting with the proposition that education and training form the basis of the 

 moral treatment of all classes of the insane. Commencing with criminal lunatics, 

 I adopt the division of criminal lunatics into two classes proposed by Dr. Orange, 

 of the Broadmoor Asylum :— (1) Those whose offences have been the direct result 

 of their insane state, and who up to the time of the outbreak of insanity have in 

 many cases led honest and industrious lives ; and (2) those who have been certified 

 to be insane whilst undergoing penal servitude in convict prisons, and who consist 

 chiefly of habitual criminals whose ofl'ences against law and order are part of their 

 every-day life, their habitual actions being anti-social. The first class may, I think, 



* Published in 'Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland,' 

 pt. liv. vol. vii. p. 356. 



