[39]. In an inquiry, from house to house, into the condition of the labouring population in the parishes of St. Margaret and St. John Westminster, it was found that, out of a total of 5366 houses, 2352 were occupied for terms under one year, and that no less than 1834 had been occupied during periods from one to six months only.
[40]. It appears that the mortality for five years, ending 1839, was in Catrine 1 to 54.20, whilst in Glasgow for the same period it was 1 to 31.
[41]. Mohl. Polizei-Wissenschaft, vol. i. page 135, Note.
[42]. “Or shall on the said bridge, or in any street or place within the distance aforesaid (all the legislation was restricted to “fifty yards”) from either end thereof, hoop, fire, cleanse, wash, or scald any cask or tub; or hew, saw, or cut any stone, wood or timber; or bore any timber; or make or repair, or wash or clean any coach, chaise, waggon, sledge or other carriage, or the wheel, body, springs, or other part of any coach, chaise, waggon, sledge, or other carriage (except such as may want immediate repair from any sudden accident on the spot, and which cannot be conveniently removed for that purpose); or wet, slack, or mix any lime; or wet, mix or make any mortar; or shoe, bleed, or farry any horse or other beast, unless in case of sudden accident; or clean, dress, drive, or turn loose any horse, or other beast, or cattle; or show or expose any stallion or stonehorse; or show or expose, or exercise or expose to sale any horse or other beast; or kill or slaughter, or scald, singe, dress or cut up any animal, either wholly or in part; or cause or permit any blood to run from any slaughter-house, butcher’s-shop or shamble into any of the streets or places within the distance aforesaid from the said bridge; or shall sell or assist in selling by auction or public sale, any cattle, goods, wares, merchandize, or thing or things whatsoever; or hang up or expose to sale, or cause or permit to be hanged up, placed or exposed to sale, any goods, wares, or merchandize whatever, or any fruit, vegetables, or garden-stuff, butchers’ meat, or other matter or thing upon the said bridge; or in, or upon, or so as to project over or upon the footway or carriage-way of the said streets or places within the distance aforesaid, or beyond the line, or on the outside of the window or windows of the house, shop, or place at which the same shall be so hanged up, placed, or exposed to sale, or so as to obstruct or incommode the passage of any person or carriage: or leave open after sunset the door or window of any cellar, or other underground room or apartment, without having placed or left a sufficient light therein to warn and prevent persons passing in the streets and public places within the distance aforesaid from the said bridge, from falling into such cellars or other underground rooms or apartments; or bait, or cause to be baited any bull or other animal; or throw at any cock or fowl in the manner called cock-throwing, or set up any fowl to be thrown at in such manner; or play at foot-ball, or at any other game on the said bridge, or within such distance as aforesaid, to the annoyance of any inhabitant or inhabitants, or passenger or passengers,” * * * * “or wilfully permit or suffer any horse, or other beast or cattle which such person may be riding or driving, or leading, to go thereon; or shall tie or fasten any horse or other cattle to any house, wall, fence, post, tree, or other thing whatsoever, across any of the highways, footways, or foot-pavements of the said bridge, or within the distance aforesaid.”
[43]. Pay of the corps of Royal Engineers for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, consisting of 241 officers, viz.—5 colonels-commandant, at 2l. 14s. 9½d. per diem each; 10 colonels, at 1l. 6s. 3d. ditto; 20 lieutenant-colonels, at 18s. 1d. ditto; 5 lieutenant-colonels, at 16s. 1d. ditto; 40 captains, at 11s. 1d. ditto; 40 second captains, at 11s. 1d. ditto; 80 first lieutenants, at 6s. 10d. ditto; 40 second lieutenants, at 5s. 1d. ditto;—total, 48,093l.
Pay of the corps of Royal Sappers and Miners for general service, consisting of 961 men, officers included; viz.—Staff: 1 brigade-major, at 10s. per diem; 1 adjutant, at 10s. ditto; 1 quarter-master, at 8s. ditto; 2 serjeant-majors, at 4s. 6½d. ditto each; 3 quarter-master serjeants, at 4s. 0½d. ditto; 1 bugle-major, at 4s. 0½d. ditto;—total 972l. One company consisting of—1 colour serjeant. at 3s. 0½d. per diem; 3 serjeants, at 2s. 6½d. ditto each; 4 corporals, at 2s. 2½d. ditto; 4 second corporal, at 1s. 10¾d. ditto; 75 carpenters, masons, bricklayers, smiths, wheelers, coopers, collar-makers, painters, tailors, miners, and 2 buglers, at 1s. 2½d. per diem each;—total 3,465l.—Ordnance Estimates for 1841.
[44]. It may be of interest to observe that as the whole population grows in age, the annual increase in numbers may be deemed to be equivalent to an annual increase of numbers of the average ages of the community. If they were maintained on the existing average of territory to the population in England, the additional numbers would require an annual extension of one fifty-seventh of the present territory of Great Britain, possessing the average extent of roads, commons, hills, and unproductive land. The extent of new territory required annually would form a county larger than Surrey, or Leicester, or Nottingham, or Hereford, or Cambridge, and nearly as large as Warwick. To feed the annually increased population, supposing it to consume the same proportions of meat that is consumed by the population of Manchester and its vicinity, (a consumption which appears to me to be below the average of the consumption in the metropolis,) the influx of 230,000 of new population will require for their consumption an annual increase of 27,327 head of cattle, 70,319 sheep, 64,715 lambs, and 7894 calves, to raise which an annual increase of upwards of 81,000 acres of good pasture land would be required. Taking the consumption of wheat or bread to be on the scale of a common dietary, i. e., 56 oz. daily for a family of a man, woman, and three children, then the annual addition of supply of wheat required will be about 105,000 quarters, requiring 28,058 acres of land, yielding 30 bushels of wheat to an acre; the total amount of good land requisite for raising the chief articles of food will therefore be in all about 109,000 acres of good pasture land annually. If the increase of production obtained by the use of the refuse of Edinburgh (that is, of 3900 oxen from one quarter of the refuse of Edinburgh) be taken as the scale of production obtainable by appropriate measures, the refuse of the metropolis alone that is now thrown away would serve to feed no less than 218,288 oxen annually, which would be equivalent to the produce of double that number of acres of good pasture land.
[45]. Vide Report.
[46]. By the statute of 1 and 2 Wm. IV. c. 57, power was given to undertakers to contract for the improvement of land in Ireland, on condition that they should receive a profit which was in no case to exceed 15l. per cent. on the outlay. The undertakers, on the consent of two-thirds of the proprietors or of the lessees, were to apply to the Lord-lieutenant for a commission. Individual proprietors or lessees, not exceeding six in number, upon receiving the assent of two-thirds of the proprietors or lessees, might also apply for a commission. To the reason above assigned for the failure, these must be added—that the machinery of the Act is considered complicated; that it nevertheless contained no provisions for ascertaining boundaries, without which in Ireland it would be unsafe to raise any annuity upon the lands; that the mode of repayment, i. e., that if the landlords did not within a certain time pay the gross sum assessed, the undertakers were entitled to a redeemable annuity upon the lands drained; but there was no provision to compel the landowners to pay the gross sum, and the annuities might be small and numerous.
[47]. Except in endeavouring to give more emphatic recommendations as to the importance of making all the paid officers really responsible, I should not vary the representation I had then the honour to make in respect to the means of giving efficiency to local administration. “With respect to the allusion of Mr. Earle, as to the cry of centralization, I conceive that it is a cry to which the few who use it can attach no definite ideas, and it has certainly had little influence except with the most ignorant. The phrase has been used abroad against the destruction of the authority of local administrative bodies, and the substitution of an inefficient and irresponsible agency by the general government. But even abroad, all those who call themselves the friends of popular liberty do not declaim against centralization, but against irresponsibility. Here the phrase is used against a measure by which strong local administrative bodies of representatives have been created over the greater part of the country, where nothing deserving the name of systematised local administration has heretofore existed. The central board may be described as an agency necessary for consolidating and preserving the local administration, by communicating to each board the principles deducible from the experience of the whole; and, in cases such as those in which its intervention is now actually sought, acting so as to protect the administration being torn by disputes between members of the same local board; between a part or a minority of the inhabitants and the board, and between one local board and another, and in numerous other cases affording an appeal to a distant and locally disinterested, yet highly responsible authority, which may interpose to prevent the local administrative functions being torn or injured by local dissentions. I feel confident that the more the subject is examined, the more clearly it will be perceived that the great security for the purity and improvement of local administration must depend on a central agency.”