TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 157 
large portion of the interior of Britain, including the whole of Yorkshire. There 
were Brigantes also in Ireland, and Mr. Wright adduced arguments to show 
that the British population of Yorkshire belonged probably to the Gaelic branch of 
the Celtic race, and not to the Cymric. He described what were known of the 
peculiar characteristics of this British population of the Roman occupation of Bri- 
tain, and of the establishment of the Anglo-Saxons, and he pointed out the interest- 
ing characteristics of many of the supposed British interments in East Yorkshire, as 
belonging, he suspected, to the period of the independence of the British towns pre- 
ceding the Saxon invasion. 
He then read an account of the opening of an ancient sepulchral tumulus in the 
township of Bridlington, by Mr. Edward Tindall of that place. A skeleton was 
found, laid on its back, in a trench or grave cut in the chalk, with a rude urn which 
had been turned on the Jathe. A flint spear-head was found, according to the de- 
scription, in the skull, as though it had penetrated from the back of the neck to the 
jaw. Mr. Wright concluded by pointing out circumstances in this interment which 
were rather of a Teutonic character, than Celtic or Roman. 
STATISTICAL SCIENCE. 
Address by the President, Enwarp Batnes, Esq., on opening the Section. 
Ir the British Association were a theatre for intellectual display, I should shrink 
from occupying a chair in which I have had such distinguished predecessors. But if 
I understand the spirit of this Association, it is the simple, honest, earnest pursuit of 
truth; first, of truth in facts, and secondly, of truth in principles; and it would be 
quite foreign to that spirit either to attempt anything of display or to apologize for 
its absence. I shall be permitted, however, to welcome the disciples of economical 
and statistical science on their visit to this important centre of industry, where prac- 
tical illustrations may be found of many branches of their subject, and where, I hope, 
there are many who can value their inquiries. After the remarks made last night by 
the President of the Association, it may seem superfluous to say anything further on 
the claims of that science which he prononnced to ‘“ bear more immediately than any 
others on the prosperity of nations and the well-being of mankind.” We must all 
have felt how unanswerably the President proved the value of economical and statis- 
tical science, when he referred to the department of vital statistics, and showed what 
terrific losses had been sustained by our army and navy and the army of France, from 
the neglect of sanitary rules, But I may just remark that what gave to the recent 
report of Mr. Sidney Herbert’s commission on the health of our troops in barracks its 
resistless force, was the certainty and precision with which statistical researches 
enabled it to measure the amount of loss sustained, by comparison with the mortality 
in other classes of the population at the same ages. The report might have dwelt on 
sickness, on injudicious diet, on defective ventilation, on want of drainage, and so 
forth, and all such statements would have been pronounced to be exaggerations or 
errors; but when it applied the ascertained scale of mortality so as to prove that there 
were so many deaths in the thousand when there ought only to have been half that 
number, the definiteness of the figures and facts defied evasion, fastened on the public 
mind and conscience, and compelled immediate measures of reform. Those persons 
who have ignorantly charged upon political economy and statistics a disregard of 
moral considerations and of humanity, may now see how egregiously they were mis- 
taken, and how the arithmetic which they thought so heartless is rising up as the 
most powerful advocate of the value of human life, of health, of domestic comfort, of 
temperance, of virtue, of proper leisure, of education, and of all that can purify and 
elevate society. Iam glad to know that we shall have one or more papers on im- 
portant points of vital statistics laid before this meeting. May I for a moment refer 
to another reproach thrown upon statistics, namely, that they may be so used as to 
prove anything? I hardly need say that it is unfair to argue from the abuse of a thing 
against its proper use. But it may be admitted, that there is sufficient ground for 
