TBANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 851 



3. The Improvement of Labourers^ Cottages. 

 By Rev. J. O. Bevan, M.A., F.G.S. 



The author discussed the following questions : — 

 Influence of surroundings on health and character. 

 Taking stock of present condition of things. 

 Growing importance attached to health questions. 

 Additional knowledge of hygienic requirements. 

 Vastness of area involved. 

 Magnitude of numbers affected. 

 Considerations involved in constructing dwelling : 



Affecting health. Affecting efficiency. 



Affecting comfort. 



Classes appealed to : 



Landlords, farmers, labourers. | Hygienists, reformers. 



Act of Parliament : 



Additional powers conferred. 



4. Index Numbers. By Stephen Bourne. 



FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15. 

 Tbe following Papers were read : — 



1. On Agricultural Depression. By H. H. Scott. 



The business of farming is so popular that in all ages up to recent times meu 

 were inclined to drift into it, but the uninitiated find out to their cost that it 

 is not without its full share of troubles and disappointments. 



The decline in prices and the market value of agricultural products are 

 now less than the cost of production, turning farming, which was never very 

 money-making, into a money-losing process. 



The causes of the decline : 



The danger that farmers stiU having some money may come to realise that 

 capital invested in the pursuit is no longer either profit-giving or safe, and may 

 consequently withdraw both the money and themselves from the industry. 



The alleviations suggested by theorists, and why they fail : 



Alleviations which would tend to stay the rapid decline in agriculture, but 

 although favourable in this direction might be construed by some people as un- 

 favourable to those having no connection with land. 



Alleviations which are practicable without doubt, because, although advan- 

 tageous to agriculture, could not be construed as being correspondingly dis- 

 advantageous to the non-agricultural classes of this country. 



2. The Diminution of the Net Immigration from the rest of the country 

 into the great towns of England and Wales, 1871-91. By Edwin 



C ANN AN, M.A. 



In London, with the remainder of Middlesex and Surrey and the registration 

 districts of Bromley, Dartford, Gravesend, Romford, and West Ham, the difference 

 between the actual increase of population and the excess of births over deaths was 

 271,648 in the decade 1851 to 1860, 271,155 from 1861 to 1870,304,918 from 1871 

 to 1880, and only 171,442_from 1881 to 1890. For fifteen other great xirban dis- 

 tricts, with a total population of six millions in 1891, the corresponding figures were 

 253,492, 215,342, 1 70,726, and 4,261. 



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