50 
The Census of 1891 and Rural Depopulation. 
this substitution and the decline in the number of farmers. On 
the contrary, taking the six counties which showed the maximum 
decrease, and the four which showed the minimum, he found 
that in the two counties — Huntingdonshire and Buckinghamshire 
— in which the percentage of decrease was greater than in the 
rest, the percentage of the increase of permanent pasture was 
less ; and that in Worcestershire, where the decrease was 
smaller than in any county save two, the increase in permanent 
pasture was also greater than in any county save two. So diffi- 
cult is it to isolate causes and to trace their connexion with 
their effects in the mass of figures recorded in a census. So 
probable would it seem that a common impression may appear 
not to be supported in any definite, unmistakable manner by the 
returns of the Registrar-General. 
Few opinions, for example, have been more confidently put 
forward, or more generally accepted, than the assertion that it is 
the very young and the very old who have been left behind 
by the influx into the towns. But no such certain testimony 
is borne by the census. As far as the aggregate of the male 
agricultural labourers of England and YVales is concerned 
there has been, so the Registrar-General states, “ a greater pro- 
portional diminution at the advanced than at the earlier 
ages.” In 1881 the proportion per 100,000 living of male 
agricultural labourers between 15 and 20 was 20,513; in 1891 
it was 21,031; between 20 and 25 the figures stood respec- 
tively at 13,012 and 13,237 ; between 25 and 45 at 31,562 
and 32,750 ; between 45 and 65 at 25,460 and 24,035 ; and for 
65 and over at 9,453 and 8,947. It is true, however, that in the 
towns, as compared with the country, there is a great excess of 
persons from 15 to 45 years of age, and, except in the case of 
children under 5, there is a deficiency at all the other age- 
periods. No doubt this fact is explained, as the Registrar- 
General says, by the influx of adults attracted by higher wages 
and the other allurements of urban life ; and, as they themselves 
are of reproductive ages, the large number of infants born 
swells the proportion of the first age-period, though it must be 
added that the notable decrease of the birth-rate, which has 
been one of the most significant features of the last decennium, 
and has disturbed many plausible predictions, has resulted in a 
counterbalancing of the excess of births in the towns by their 
greater infantile mortality. 
It may be noted also as a curious fact, which has an inter- 
esting bearing on the question of rural efflux and urban immi- 
gration, that the proportion of females to males for all ages is 
much higher in the towns than in the country. It is 109 to 100 
