STATISTICS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. 469 



If further evidence were wanted to prove the commercial ascendancy of 

 England, it would be furnished by its postal and telegraph business. The tele- 

 graph lines of the British Islands are of less length than those of several other 

 countries, but the number of messages forwarded along them is greater than 

 elsewhere, and an average Englishman writes three letters to every one penned 

 by another European.* Submarine cables connect the British Islands with each 

 other and with all countries of the world. The principal points of departure 

 of these cables are Penzance, near the Land's End, and Valencia, at the south- 

 western extremity of Ireland. 



Social Condition. 



There are not wanting prophets of ill omen who point to the decrease of English 

 exports as a proof of decay ; but for the present, at all events, England is the 

 richest country in the world. Mr. Giffen,t who bases his computations upon 

 the income-tax returns, asserts that English capital has increased annually since 

 1865 at the rate of £180,000,000, and that the national wealth is consequently 

 growing very rapidly. This wealth, however, is very unequally distributed, for 

 England is at one and the same time a country of immense fortunes and 

 of the extreme of poverty. More than a million persons, able-bodied men, 

 women, and children, are wholly or partially dependent upon the parochial 

 authorities for their support. The duty of maintaining its own poor was 

 cast upon each parish throughout the country by the well-known statute of 

 Elizabeth (1601), frequently amended since, but nevertheless the basis of the 

 existing system. About 1830 the pressure from an indiscriminate giving of alms 

 had become almost unbearable, and there were parishes Avhich broke down under 

 the burden. The height of the poor rates sometimes compelled landlords to give 

 up their rents, and farmers their tenancies, from sheer inability to pay them. 

 In the village of Cholesbury, in Buckinghamshire, only 35 persons out of 

 a total population of 139 souls supported themselves. In the parish of Sunder- 

 land, which at that time had 17,000 inhabitants, no less than 14,000 persons 

 were in receipt of relief from the poor rates. Î This was the alarming state of 

 things when, to inquire into the working of the Poor Laws, a royal commission was 

 appointed, whose labours resulted in the Poor-Law Act of 1834. This Act revived 

 the workhouse test and the wholesome restrictions upon voluntary pauperism, 

 which had been removed from a feeling of mistaken humanity. England is 

 divided, for Poor-Law purposes, into a number of " Unions," consisting on an 

 average of twenty-five parishes or townships each. Each of these unions has 

 its Board of Guardians, elected by the ratepayers. In Ireland the Poor Law 

 is administered in pretty much the same manner as in England, but in Scotland 

 Poor-Law unions are unknown. The relief is there granted by the parochial 



* In 1879-80 there -svere delivered by post 1,128.000,000 letters (33 per head of the population), 

 340,000,000 book packets and newspapers, and 115,000,000 postcards: 23,385,416 messages were 

 forwarded by telegraph. 



t "Eecent Accumulations of Capital in England." 



J Pretyman, "Dispauperization." ~ 



