June 18, 1886.1 



SCIENCE. 



553 



15.7 per cent ; property-owning (so returned), 2.5, 

 2, 2, 2.2 per cent ; and indefinite, 1.2, 0.9, 1.2, 2.3 

 per cent. The increase of 1 per cent in the in- 

 definite class for 1881 was due to the transfer to 

 this class of retired persons, who, in previous 

 censuses, were returned under their former occu- 

 pations ; but, at best, those tabulated under this 

 head were a meaningless remainder, the result of 

 accident or defects of enumeration. Similarly 

 the class called property-owning was entirely de- 

 lusive. It contained a few land-owners, house- 

 owners, and others who might as reasonably be 

 included with other employers of labor in the 

 sections of industry, and it also included a good 

 many independent women. 



It is certain that during the thirty years in ques- 

 tion the classes whose maintenance depended on 

 the mere possession of property must have been 

 largely augmented. It would further be seen 

 that public and professional service, with domestic 

 service, had gained what productive and distribu- 

 tive industry had lost, and that this movement had 

 been progressive. With regard to domestic ser- 

 vice, it was noteworthy that the increase was 

 mainly in the women and girls, the indoor men- 

 servants having decreased from 74,000 in 1851, to 

 56,000 in 1881, while the population had risen from 

 18,000,000 to 26,000,000, — a fact which would 

 seem to indicate a greater diffusion of wealth, and 

 also, perhaps, less ostentation of expenditure 

 among the very rich. 



In public service and the professions the per- 

 centage of persons occupied in administration, 

 law, and medicine, had slightly decreased ; while 

 police, amusement, and education had increased, 

 education especially showing, as might be expect- 

 ed, a large addition in the last decade. 



Coming to a detailed review of the industrial 

 classes, he stated that the production of raw 

 material employed a decreasing percentage. The 

 English depend more on what they import, and 

 less on what they find at home. The reduction, 

 however, fell entirely on agriculture, as the per- 

 centage employed in fishing and mining had in- 

 creased. For the three decades since 1851, those 

 employed on the land had decreased at the rate of 

 3£, 11|, and 11 per cent respectively ; being 26 

 per cent for the thirty years, or, stated in num- 

 bers, 60,000, 196,000, and 163,000, which added 

 up to 419,000, an enormous total. Against these 

 losses, which were mostly in ordinary agricultural 

 labor, must be set the equivalent of the increased 

 use of machinery, before we could say that less 

 energy was devoted to the cultivation of the soil 

 now than thirty years ago. A new class con- 

 nected with the application of science to agricul- 

 ture had sprung into being, and its increasing 



numbers pointed to a change of system, involving 

 improvements, rather than neglect of any kind, 

 as a cause of the decrease in the agricultural popu- 

 lation. It seemed to be assumed by many that 

 the reduction in the proportion of those who lived 

 by agriculture, as compared to those who lived by 

 other means, was not only an absolute evil, but 

 necessarily the result of economic error of some 

 kind, and England's land system was responsible. 

 Such views he regarded as mistaken and mislead- 

 ing. His business, however, was to state the 

 facts as given in the census returns ; and these 

 showed us, that, in the last thirty years, England 

 had changed from a population about half agri- 

 cultural and half manufacturing, to one in which 

 manufacture was double of agriculture, and we 

 had no reason to suppose that the process of 

 change in this direction was yet ended. This 

 change had been accompanied by an enormous 

 increase in the total population, so that altogether 

 support had been found during this period in 

 other ways than the tilling of the soil for a new 

 population of 8,500,000 souls. Since the beginning 

 of the present century we had had to find new 

 means of support for no fewer than 17,000,000 

 people. In calling attention to and correcting 

 certain statements, which had been made with 

 regard to what was called the ' depopulation ' of 

 our rural districts, — statements made, he said, to 

 support propositions of violent social change, — 

 Mr. Booth stated that the exodus from rural or 

 non-urban districts amounted to 605,000 instead of 

 2,000,000 (mentioned by Mr. Wallace in 'Bad 

 times' as the decrease between 1871 and 1881 in 

 the rural population), and that the influx into the 

 towns was less, again, than the total exodus from 

 the rural districts by reason of the loss by emigra- 

 tion, finally reducing Mr. Wallace's 2,000,000 to 

 441,000. The greatest influx into urban areas was 

 into comparatively new places, while the next 

 greatest movement was that into the country dis- 

 tricts surrounding the present centres of popula- 

 tion, and especially adjacent to the new urban 

 districts. 



Purely agricultural districts had lost population 

 largely, but otherwise there had been all over the 

 country a fair distribution of the increasing mil- 

 lions, and everywhere new occupations had been 

 found. It was unfortunately impossible to trace 

 the occupations, other than agriculture, of the 

 non-urban population. The backbone of the in- 

 dustrial organism they were studying was build- 

 ing and manufacture, which he ventured to 

 bracket as being alike the turning of raw mate- 

 rials into things serviceable ; and they found that 

 this remained nearly constant, at 38 per cent of 

 the employed population. 



