has the population absolutely shown a decline? It appears, from a table, that in twelve out of the thirty-three counties of Scotland there has been, since the census of 1851, irrespective altogether of the natural progress of the population by excess of births over deaths, a diminution of the inhabitants to the extent of 31,825; and as those counties are almost entirely agricultural and pastoral, the fact would seem to indicate that either manual labour was less wanted in these particular districts, or that a better remuneration for labour and industry was offered elsewhere. For a striking contrast to this state of things in the agricultural and pastoral parts of Scotland, we have only to look to the census figures of the commercial, mining, and manufacturing county of Lanark, where we find, in the course of the last ten years, an increase to the population of no less than 101,390! The fact is, the increase of the population is almost entirely limited in Scotland to towns, and to these of the largest kind-the increase in towns being 10.9 per cent., whereas the rural districts only show an advance of 0.9, or not 1 per cent.; or, if Scotland be divided into three great divisions, viz. insular, mainland-rural, and towns, the insular will show a decrease of 36 per cent., the mainland-rural an increase of 3.9 per cent., and the towns an increase of 12.9. But, to show still more forcibly the decline that has taken place among those residing in the rural portions of Scotland, it may be mentioned that the small increase stated as occurring in the mainland-rural district of 3.9 per cent. is owing almost entirely to the increased population of the smaller towns situated within the limits of that great division of the country. The leading deduction, then, to be drawn from these dry statistical details is simply this, that there has existed for some time a manifest tendency on the part of the inhabitants of the country districts, and particularly of those dwelling amid the highlands and islands, to quit a land where rural labour was but little wanted, and pastoral care was poorly paid, for other countries, where both were in good demand and highly compensated, or for towns and cities, where the hardy and unskilled labourer is almost always sure to find employment. That this emigrating spirit in search of future prosperity has proved as yet as advantageous to Scotland as it has certainly been to Ireland, will scarcely be denied, seeing that it increases not only the value of the labour, and raises the condition of those who remain behind, but elevates the position and increases the comforts of those who go away. And although there must ever be felt a pang on the part of a pilgrim family when abandoning for ever the cherished scenes of childhood, even when those are associated with nothing better than the comfortless home of the Highland cottar, still the mutual personal benefit that results from this separation has been generally found to be, to those gone and to those left, well worthy of the temporary pang.

Among the immediate causes which have led to the late depopulation of the Highlands and islands, and the partial diminution of the inhabitants of the other rural districts of Scotland, we shall only allude, first, to the great enlargement which has lately taken place in the sheep-walks and agricultural farms, particularly in the northern parts of the country, thereby diminishing a host of small master graziers, and even smaller agricultural tenants, each and all of them without energy and without capital; secondly, to the discouragement given to the continuance of unnecessary cottars idly occupying the country; and thirdly, to the effects and results of the late Highland famines, which have, alas! too sadly taught the poor and perishing denizens of a country that cannot maintain them to flee for refuge to one more kind and hospitable. If, however, from the returns of the present census we have been told that the rural portions of Scotland have, with respect to population, remained either stationary or have shown a tendency to decline, it is, at the same time, certain that, in the great centre of trade, mining, and manufactures (we mean in Glasgow) there has been a most marvellous increase in the numbers of its inhabitants; for, while at the commencement of the present century that city and its suburbs only contained 83,769 persons, the last census revealed the fact that its population, with that of its new-world increasing suburbs, amounted to 446,395, which, when compared with the population residing on the same territory in 1851, showed an increase of no less than 86,257 during the last ten years, or a rate of 23.95 (or nearly 24) per cent. That this increase has mainly arisen from a constant immigration from all parts of Scotland, and also from Ireland, is no doubt certain; for if we assume that the last year's birth-and-death rates (which were, births 3.87 per cent., deaths 3 per cent.) have been the average rates for the last

ten years, which we believe is not far from the truth, and that the mean population during the same period may be fairly assumed to have been 403,000, it will then follow that the natural increase, arising from the excess of births over deaths, could not have amounted to more than about 35,000, which, being deducted from the ascertained increase as shown by the late census, proves that the increase of the city and suburbs must have been supplemented by an immigration of upwards of 50,000.

That Glasgow, indeed, has been chiefly indebted during the last half century to the immigration which an increase of capital and an active and multifarious industry have induced, cannot better be illustrated than from the facts which our own lately printed analysis of the enumeration returns of the Glasgow census then exhibited. From these the fact may be gathered that, independent of the many thousand individuals that have been attracted to that centre of Scottish industry from all quarters of Scotland, there were found within the limits of its municipality alone, on the 9th of April last, no less than 10,809 native English, 63,574 native Irish, 827 foreigners, and 1440 colonists, being about 20 per cent. of the whole of that population. While Scotland, from its improved and still improving system of agriculture and cattle-rearing, may feel well content to part with her supernumerary and unemployed peasantry, either to add to the prosperity of her urban seats of industry, or to continue to fulfil the old adage, that, in every nook of the world where any good is to be got, there is to be found a Scot, a rat, and a Newcastle grindstone, she at the same time cannot but feel assured, so long as her soil is daily becoming more productive, and her manufactures, mining, and commerce are advancing, and her cities, harbours, and railroads are extending as they are at present found to be, that she is still on the pathway of prosperity, even although the census has truly proclaimed that the progress of her population has only exhibited an increase of scarcely six per cent. during the last ten years of her history.

Notes on the Progress and Prospects of the Trade of England with China since 1833. By Colonel SYKES, M.P., F.R.S.

Our present and prospective relations with China, both commercial and political, are so highly important, and involve such serious consequences, that a few observations on those subjects may neither be inopportune nor uninteresting. Whether our past policy towards China has been justifiable or not, the extension of our commercial relationns with the Chinese is sufficiently remarkable. In the year 1814 the total amount of imports and exports on British account was about 5 millions sterling. In 1826 the value exceeded seven millions; and for the last five years of the East India Company's monopoly the average value of the Company's and the private trade in which they permitted their servants to engage approached to ten millions sterling. Since the Act of 1833, which deprived the East India Company of their monopoly, as might be expected, a rush of competing interests has increased the trade since 1834 fully fourfold. In 1856, according to statements which appeared in different numbers of the Hong Kong Government Gazette, the value, independently of the opium trade with India, amounted to £17,526,198. In 1857, the imports were £4,783,843; but the exports were £12,742,355. So far as the legal trade was concerned, the exports trebled the imports; but there was another article of commerce of which there was no official record kept. He referred to opium, which in 1857 amounted to four millions. Still the exports exceeded the imports by nearly four millions, which must have been paid to China in silver; but as the balance of trade between India and China had always been in favour of India, most of the silver from Europe found its way to India through China in payment for opium, and this fact assisted to account for the silver which poured into India annually, and did not leave the country again. From the years 1834-35 to 1858-59, India received £123,143,696, in bullion, of which only £19,752,653 left the country again. A remarkable progress had taken place in the export trade of Shanghai-a fact which presented some anomalous and conflicting considerations. Since the year 1853 the rebels or Taepings had been in possession of Nankin, the ancient capital of China, and of several great tea- and silk-producing provinces in the Yantsze Kiang; and Shanghai had to be supplied either from these provinces or from provinces beyond the rebel territories and still under the Tartar authorities,

but whose products would mostly have to pass through the rebel territory to reach Shanghai. A portion of the Europeans in China had exhausted damnifying epithets in reference to the rebel character and proceedings. They were bloodthirsty brigands," &c. He was not an apologist of the rebels; but he could not refrain from asking himself how it was that the trade of Shanghai could have flourished in the way it had done if the accusation that they were desolators and exterminators were literally true. Annually increasing quantities of tea and silk could not be produced from "howling wastes ;" and those products, if for the most part coming from provinces under Tartar rule, must have passed unmolested through Taeping territories, though as brigands they ought to have plundered them. The Taepings professed to have a divine mission to extirpate the Tartars, their foreign rulers, and to destroy idolatry; and in prosecuting these objects great atrocities no doubt had been perpetrated; but, in respect to the rural population as contra-distinguished from the Tartars, the fact was patent, that when unexpectedly repulsed in their attack upon Shanghai, in August 1860, by French and English troops, although exasperated by a sense of betrayal, in their retreat they left uninjured the standing crops around Shanghai, and they did not molest Europeans. The nature of this paper will not admit of the discussion of the conflicting opinions promulgated respecting the character and conduct equally of the rebels and of the Tartars. There could be no doubt that they practised towards each other the most revolting atrocities, such as were the usual accompaniments of civil war exasperated by religious fanaticism. He could only consider the question in relation to the prospects of the British trade with China. The expenditure of British blood and British treasure in three successful wars had extorted from the Tartars all the facilities that the British trader desired to have, leaving, however, in Tartar breasts a burning resentment at the degradation of the Imperial government, and in Tartar officials a manifest disposition to obstructive subterfuges in carrying out the treaty of Tien-tsin. The Taepings or rebels on their part issued proclamations professing amity for foreigners, calling them "Christian brethren," and inviting them to enter into commercial relations, but with one exception. The traffic in opium they denounce as a religious ordinance, and threaten the penalty of death to those who engage in it. The tax-payers of England, therefore, would have to determine whether we were to tread in our former steps, and, for one article of commerce, waste life and money to force upon a reluctant people, for selfish gain, a deleterious product; while, at the same time, we crushed a national movement to throw off a foreign oppression, which under analogous circumstances in Europe had had our warmest sympathy, and at the success of which all freemen rejoiced.

On some Exceptional Articles of Commerce and Undesirable Sources of Revenue. By CHARLES THOMPSON.

The object of the paper was to show that the malting of barley and distillation of grain are the means of a great and serious waste of food, enhancing the scarcity which is so injurious to the welfare of the people; that the liquor traffic and the drinking usages it promotes are barriers between our wants and an abundant supply of food, and that, by passing "the admirable suggestion of the United Kingdom Alliance, endorsed by Lord Brougham, and hailed by popular acclamation everywhere," a Permissive Bill to enable a large majority in any district to suppress the common sale of intoxicating liquors, parliament would legislate on principles of social justice, sound political economy, and sagacious statesmanship. The writer, in conclusion, remarked as follows:-"That the food of a people is their life-the means of their existence; and that whatever tends to render human food scarce in quantity, or to deteriorate its nutritious quality, or converts it into an element of mischief and disease, must be anti-social, immoral, irrational, and highly criminal. Reason, morals, political economy, and social science, all concur in condemnation of any system that inevitably destroys that which is essential to the life, the health, and the happiness of the people. To destroy food is, in effect, to destroy that life and health and happiness that food sustains. Hence, it becomes one of the first duties of statesmanship to provide and to husband the means of subsistence. It is said in a revered book, "He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him;" and the instincts of humanity respond to that saying. But if it is wicked and

accursed to "withhold" corn in times of scarcity, how much more infamous and criminal it must be to cause that scarcity, by artificial means, by the deliberate destruction of human food, and by the conversion of it into that which is not food, but which tends to promote disease, and to degrade the people, in the same proportion that it dissipates the resources of the nation, and perverts and frustrates the bountiful and beneficent intentions of Providence!"

Cooperative Stores; their Bearing on Athenæums, &c.

By the Rev. W. R. THORBURN, M.A.

After some remarks on the principle of cooperation-the advantages of the scheme, the salutary influence it exerts-the subject was illustrated by a reference to the Bury Provision Society. In March 1858, there were 280 members, capital £1346, and a dividend of £157. In March 1861, there were 1550 members, capital £9420, and a dividend of £1451.

The phase of the subject now submitted is educational or literary-an appendage of news-room, reading-room, and library, to these cooperative stores. This is a new and influential element. The Society referred to opened a news- and readingroom in October 1859. The source of income to this department is not subscription, but 2 per cent. on the net profits, yielding an average quarterly sum of £27. This sum is disposed of in these proportions:-10 for the news-room and £17 for the library.

The influence which this educational element is fitted to exert on athenæums and mechanics institutions is great. They are dependent entirely on personal subscriptions. The Bury Athenæum had, in 1859, 628 members; now, in 1861, 431,— the decrease chiefly to be referred to this cause. The tendency of this phase of cooperation is to weaken or annihilate athenæums, and to bring about one of two issues, either to throw this department of education into the hands of working men, or to prompt the middle class to espouse cooperative institutions.

The Rev. W. THORBURN also read a paper, in which he deplored the effects of cooperative societies on Athenæums and other literary institutions.

On the Employment of Women in Workhouses. By Miss TWINING. The author commenced by saying that in 646 unions and workhouses in England and Wales there were on the 1st of January 113,507 inmates, of whom 30,654 were children in pauper schools. The whole number of indoor and outdoor poor was 850,896; and of those who were called able-bodied 40,000 were males, while above 110,000 were females. Thus a large proportion of our destitute pauper population was composed of women and children; in many workhouses they were two-thirds of the inmates. The returns of the Poor Law Board gave but scanty information; and with regard to particular workhouses, details were not published. The number of deaths in the course of the year might be ascertained from the reports of the local inspectors of health, but they found no details as to the ages and causes of death. Thus those who paid the rates, and ought to be interested in the mode of their expenditure, as well as in the welfare of those who were supported by them, knew nothing whatever about it. The one medical man who visited the workhouse, and the Guardians, were the only persons who knew anything about the state of things or the condition of the inmates. With a view of enlightening and interesting persons in these various large and important institutions, she would suggest that reports should be annually published, containing accounts of the numbers and classes of the inmates, the length of time they had been such, and, what would be the most important of all, the causes of death. This would give the information which now they had not, about the mortality of infants and children in workhouses, about which much was surmised, but little was known, from the impossibility of obtaining facts. In short, what she was anxious to urge was the admission of more daylight generally into workhouses, which would soon result from a more general interest in them. Subscribers to hospitals and other institutions wished to know how their money was spent, and what the management was; and why should not ratepayers wish to know what was done with the money they contributed? It

was not only desirable but a positive duty to do so; and it was to be hoped that the interest, now partly awakened, might soon become more active and beneficial. The tide of sympathy and benevolence, which had reached to the very lowest and apparently to the most hopeless depths of the social system, could not fail to penetrate in time the recesses of our workhouses, where thousands of our poorest and most suffering fellow-creatures were maintained, but about whom so much ignorance and still more indifference prevailed. Here was one of the widest fields yet opened in our country for the exercise of woman's sympathy and help. Hitherto both had been practically ignored in these institutions, the management being entirely in the hands of the guardians, and frequently the only responsible woman in authority being the paid matron, who was expected to control and manage the house and all the inmates, however numerous they might be. It was now six years since Mrs. Jameson directed attention to the claims of women to an influence over persons of their own sex in institutions. Whatever the faults of the inmates of workhouses, they stood in need of woman's help and sympathy, probably all the more deeply because women only could be the reformers of their own sex; and if vice had directly or indirectly brought these women and children to the last refuge of the destitute, there was the more urgent call for those of their own sex to come forward to their rescue. This was the position taken by the Workhouse Visiting Society three years ago. During the Crimean war, hospital nurses were thought to be bad enough; but the workhouse nurses were almost invariably many grades lower still, because no remuneration was permitted for them. The most helpless cases failed to receive attention except through giving bribes to the nurses, who hovered around visitors to the patients in the hope of procuring gifts. The condition of the young was fully as important as that of the sick; and Miss Twining advocated the desirability of separating the decent and respectable girls and women from the corrupted and depraved a point which had never yet been attended to as it deserved. The experience of nearly six months in the Industrial Home for young women opened by the Workhouse Visiting Society in London proved that a respectable place was needed for girls in the intervals of changing their situations. During that period 30 had been received, and from eleven workhouses alone. Of these 20 had been in pauper schools of some kind, and not having lost their character were not fit inmates of the wards in workhouses where women of all kinds congregated without distinction. One girl declared that she had never heard such language as greeted her ears in the ward of a London workhouse, to which she was transferred on leaving her place; and another girl, of 16, who proclaimed her intention of leaving the ward for the worst of purposes, said she had gained her information from women in the ward; and it was well known that the elder women, who were invariably the worst, took a pleasure in corrupting the minds of the younger ones. Guardians should have the power to pay for girls in institutions where there might be some hope of their remaining uncorrupted. At present there was no sufficient agency for doing this whilst they were in workhouses. The admission of a higher and better influence was the only hope of improvement that existed; and why such an agency should be so frequently rejected was surprising; for it was obvious that to improve the morality of the inmates was to enable them to lead a respectable life out of doors, and to get them off our hands. Yet this seemed to be entirely overlooked by the jealousy of some officials as to "interference," so called. She did not urge an indiscriminate and unauthorized admission of visitors to workhouses. That had never been the proposal of the Society to which she belonged. That might have caused confusion and inconvenience, which their plans had never done when properly carried out; they had always ministered comfort to the inmates, and contributed to the peace of the house.

On Strikes. By Dr. J. WATTS.

Strikes, he said, were amongst the most serious evils to be encountered in the operations of trade; and he noticed the importance of a very intimate connexion between an employer and his workpeople. The pertinacity and endurance of workpeople on strike would do credit to a good cause, and was proof of their capacity for great improvement. He then passed in review some of the principal strikes that have recently taken place, most of which had arisen from dissatisfaction with the