Agricultural Statistics. 
587 
certainly at much less cost, than by any other means that were hnovm to 
me." — p. 30. 
Subsequently, in answer to a question from Lord Berners, 
whether, " if the boards of guardians were not made use of as 
the medium, the churchwardens should be required to make this 
return ? " the reply given was — 
" I am ahvays rather fearful of considering other plans ; I know many plans 
have been recommended, but on all occasions I have merely regarded myself as 
having been asked to state, whether I thoiujht agricultural statistics could be 
collected by hoards of guardians ; I would not venture to state that agricultural 
statistics could not be collected by other agencies. As far, however, as I see 
my way, I believe that boards of guardians form an admirable machinery 
for collecting agricultural statistics, and I have not looked much beyond 
them." 
The disappointment expressed at the resulting experiment we 
have already quoted. 
Nothing, however, can be more logical or candid than the 
terms in which the question originally proposed, and the answer 
given, are here defined. What was that question ? It was not, 
' How can agricultural statistics be best collected ? ' but, ' Can 
agricultural statistics be collected by boards of guardians ? ' To 
this the answer given is in that form which logicians, in their 
stiff but here not unapt phraseology, call the ' particular affir- 
mative.' This Sir John Walsham admits, and even enforces. 
But still there is another limitation which does not seem to 
have escaped his attention in the first part of his evidence, 
though it does not reappear in his answer to Lord Berners. The 
question propounded to the witness was, Can agricultural statistics 
be collected by boards of guai-dians in Norfolk ? The strictly 
definite answer which was given to this narrowly-defined question, 
appears to our humble view to have been most unfairly and 
illogically expanded into a wide-spread and mischievous fallacy. 
For, the question was not only limited to a particular county, 
but even to a particular person. The actual inquiry, with all 
ellipse and implication supplied, resolves itself in fact to this, 
" Could you with the aid of your influence in Norfolk, one of 
the most intelligent and advanced counties of England, under- 
take to collect agricultural statistics through the medium of boards 
of guardians ? " 
We will not offend the reader's power of inference by wasting a 
remark on the gigantic non seqiiitur which has been saddled upon 
the narrow back of the answer given to this question. We have 
dwelt at some length upon this point, but it is one which we have 
been anxious, for obvious reasons, to investigate ; and if a further 
reason be required than those we shall proceed to give in the words 
of the Inspectors in other districts, we will confess to a feeling that 
undue force has been put upon conclusions not quite logically 
