́fourteen millions. The same may be said of Austria. In many of the German States the proportion is higher still. In Denmark the cattle are not very much less numerous than the population. In the United States there is rather more than one head to every two of population.

With pigs, as I have stated, Great Britain is very scantily provided. In France and Prussia the pigs are one to seven; in Austria one to four and a half. Taking the whole of Europe the proportion is one to six. In the United States there are more pigs than population.

Had the returns supplied us with information as to poultry, the deficiency would have been still more striking. In the year 1865 this country imported more than 400 millions of eggs, if the hundred of eggs be taken, as it has been from the earliest time, at 120.

I need hardly inform my hearers of the fundamental canon of prices-that when the supply of any necessary of life falls short of the demand, the price rises in a proportion which I may perhaps venture on calling geometrical; that is, the quantity available for sale is worth more, increasing according to the deficiency, than the normal or natural supply would be. The statistics of the cattle returns supply the key towards interpreting the high price of meat; and we may be sure that the price would be higher than it actually is, were it not for those improvements in stock-keeping by which cattle become more available for consumption at earlier dates-improvements which are yearly developed.

This deficiency is not greatly supplemented by importation. Small as the stock of cattle is, the annual importations do not amount to more than one-twentieth of the ordinary stock, while that of sheep is, as a rule, but one-fiftieth. During the present year even these quantities must have undergone a serious diminution. Nor is the import of meat large. The most important item is that of bacon. But even here the largest estimate will not give more than the equivalent of 300,000 pigs. The beef seems to be about equal to the supply of 50,000 oxen.

It is a matter of regret that no facts have been collected by which we might compare the present and the past supply of live stock in Great Britain It is of course always dangerous to trust to impressions, or to memory; but I cannot but be convinced that there has been a general and considerable diminution in the amount of live-stock in Great Britain for some years past. It is now comparatively seldom that agricultural labourers are able to keep pigs; it is still more rare that they breed poultry. The enormous importation of eggs suggests that the fowls kept in Great Britain are comparatively scanty. But it is probable that the maintenance of insect-eating birds is an important provision in agricultural economy, and that when we find fault with the destruction of small birds, we forget that our practice is dispensing with a still more important means for checking the ravages of insects, as well as for supplying that great deficiency in live-stock which seems to characterize our domestic economy. It is possible, too, that the abandonment of much pasture in the northern part of the Island to deer forests and grouse moors has considerably lessened stocks of lean cattle and mountain sheep.

It is a little dangerous to offer any comment on the second important contribution to the statistical information of the present year. Under existing circumstances we must, if we allude to the Electoral statistics, remember the caution of the Roman poet:

"Incedis per ignes Suppositos cineri doloso."

It will be clear, however, that valuable as the Blue Book is to which I am adverting, and singular as were some of the obvious inferences from its contents, the facts are imperfect and the tabulation still more so. One would have desired to see, along with the figures declaring the value of lands and tenements as estimated for income-tax, other similar charges, such as the proportion of assessed taxes, and the amount of the poor rate. It would have been well also had the distribution of the 25 per cent. of "working classes" among the several constituencies been distinctly indicated. Thus, for instance, the persons designated by this name amount to nearly all the constituency at Birkenhead; at not much less in Nottingham; whereas at Birmingham they are taken at less than a fifth, at Bradford considerably under a tenth. Is it possible that the expression "working classes"

has been variously interpreted by those who transmitted their reports to the Poor Law Board? But as the returns published in this parliamentary paper are of considerable interest, it may be confidently expected that the facts will be tabulated in a fuller manner hereafter, as they are keenly criticised at present.

The progress of statistical inquiry is not due to the direct action of the Government only, great and important as have been the aids which the various public departments have conferred on this branch of social learning. Among the scientific bodies who hold sittings in the metropolis and issue reports of their meetings and their labours, none is more industrious, more impartial, and more useful, than the Statistical Society of London. Its Journal, now in the thirty-second year of its existence, contains a mass of exceedingly important monographs and well-digested summaries, and is continually enriched by laborious and thoughtful communications. During the past year, this Journal has published more than its customary amount of statistical facts which illustrate the social condition of various European nations. There is a special value in information such as that given by my distinguished friend Dr. Farr on the mortality of children, for there cannot, I conceive, be a better gauge of the moral, the social, and the material progress of a people than a low death-rate among children. The labours of Mr. Walton and Mr. Hyde Clarke have thrown light, the former on the condition of France, a country which asserts a great social and intellectual place, and certainly occupies a commanding political influence; the latter on that of Turkey, the lowest and apparently the most irreclaimable of European communities.

I cannot but feel a lively interest in such inquiries as those which have been undertaken by Mr. Jevons. The interpretation of prices, when the facts are large enough to preclude the influence of exceptionally disturbing causes, is one of the most interesting as well as the most instructive among the whole range of economical investigations. Nothing, I believe, is more likely to correct those hasty generalizations which have formed peculiar temptations to some of our most distinguished economists than the careful analysis of prices. The illustrious corypheus of political economy, Adam Smith, was as laborious in collecting facts as he was subtle in gathering inferences; and I have been constantly struck, in following out certain researches into the history of prices, by the remarkable sagacity with which Smith occasionally anticipated or suggested the facts of social life many centuries ago.

It might be expected that there would be a close conformity between values at very remote periods of social history. The proportions subsisting between the prices of labour and food are, or should be, so close and unvarying, that we may always suspect, in fully settled countries at least, that any marked discrepancy between values at different periods is suggestive of removeable evils. For instance, if the price of food is considerably in excess of the average rate of wages, some cause, which may be eliminated or corrected, can almost always be assigned for the phenomenon. I may mention here in illustration of this rule, that during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the prices of barley and oats, wheat being taken at 100, are represented by the numbers 73·14 and 42·05, and that within the last ten years the numbers have been 70 and 45.95. Close as this relation is, the slight discrepancy may, I think, be accounted for by the incidence of the malt tax in the first case, and the great increase in the number of horses kept in the second. Other concurrent causes may, I make no doubt, be detected, but these I think are likely to

be the most dominant.

Estimates as to depreciation and exaltation in the value of the precious metals are, however, to be made with extreme caution, because they are liable to many fallacies. Some of us may remember the alarms entertained by M. Chevalier as to consequences likely to be effected on prices by the gold discoveries. It is not, I think, too much to say that these fears, though natural, were grossly exaggerated; for in order that such inductions should be valid, they should be taken from a very wide area, and many disturbing causes should be accounted for or eliminated. The effects of unfavourable seasons and interrupted importations-it is only twenty years since the country accepted the principles of free trade, several years less than

necessary, and delusive.

twenty since it has experienced the advantage of that policy-should be recognized in interpreting the money value of the first necessaries of life; while the effects of speculative purchases and forced sales are equally dominant in the price current of its conveniences. To interpret a rise and fall in the value of money (the efflux and influx of which, as a merchantable commodity, is inevitably more free than that of any other article of value) by the money measure of that which is open to a vast variety of influences, must be an operation in which infinite caution is in order to prevent the inference from becoming wholly untrustworthy On such occasions as those in which the British Association has met in considerable manufacturing towns, the Section over which I have the honour to preside has generally had the benefit of local trade reports. In so considerable a town as Nottingham, one too which for a long time has been distinguished as the centre of important and special manufactures, the Section may hope to have the advantage of hearing these reports, and obtaining information as to local expenditure and improvement. To such reports it is our practice to give priority in so far as may be consistant with the general convenience of the business before the Section. For the rest, the committee will endeavour to group the papers which are to be read so as to make the discussions of each day as congruous as possible.

On the Transfer of Real Property. By THOMAS BROWNE.

It was calculated, the author said, that one-third of the land in England was mortgaged. Every mortgage might be estimated to cost £5, exclusive of stamps, and to be of an average duration of only five or six years. We could therefore readily gather what an immense sum was annually paid for the preparation of mortgage-deeds alone. Perhaps in no case were the fictions of the law better exemplified than in a mortgage-deed, which was nothing better than a sham. Two-thirds of the matter was the repetition of an established form. The amount of the remuneration of the lawyers depended on the length of the deeds; and for short deeds, therefore, the payments would be ridiculously small. If it should be decided to abolish the present system of conveyance, on the ground of its artificial character, and there being no longer any reason for distinguishing between real and personal property, the time would be opportune (especially as the Board of Trade were obtaining statistical details to show the acreage of England, and the owners of landed property and the modes of cultivation) to attach to some standard survey map of England, and duly apportion by figures for reference all the landed property of England. It might be allotted, on the principle of a limited liability company, into so many shares, say one acre each. These might be issued in the form of scrip, from a foot-registry, to the present owners of the land, upon their affording satisfactory proof of ownership; and they would then be transferable in the same manner as other shares. This plan need in no measure interfere with the law of primogeniture. The author deprecated any rash change.

Some of the Results of the Free Licensing System in Liverpool during the last four years. By the Rev. WILLIAM CAINE, M.A., of Manchester.

Five years ago the magistrates of Liverpool adopted the plan of granting publichouse licenses to all supposed respectable persons who applied for them, without regard to the requirements of the neighbourhood in which the houses were situated, or the wishes of the inhabitants. In Manchester and other towns the wishes of the inhabitants of the districts are in some measure attended to. It may be interesting to the members of the British Association to know the effect of the new plan adopted by the Liverpool magistrates. I am able, from official returns, to lay before this Section the number of drunken cases in the borough of Liverpool determined summarily by the justices during the last eleven years; that is, during seven years while the magistrates restricted the grant of licenses in the way in which they are limited in other towns, and during four years under the new method:

TABULAR STATEMENT OF PUBLIC- AND BEER-HOUSES, &C., IN THE BOROUGH OF LIVERPOOL, FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES, FROM 1855 TILL 1865.

Let me compare the number of drunken cases given above with the number of similar cases in other towns, and, first, in the leading commercial and manufacturing towns.

LIVERPOOL COMPARED WITH THE LEADING COMMERCIAL AND MANUFACTURING TOWNS.

Birmingham had in 1864 one drunken case determined summarily by the justices in every 232 of the population; Sheffield, 1 in 195; Halifax, 1 in 175; Rochdale, 1 in 124; Leeds, 1 in 121; Manchester and Salford, 1 in 116; York, 1 in 16; Huddersfield, 1 in 75; Liverpool, 1 in 33.

But it may be said, and said truly, that Liverpool ought to be compared with seaport towns. Let us so compare them.

LIVERPOOL COMPARED WITH THE TOWNS CLASSIFIED IN THE BLUE BOOKS

AS COMMERCIAL PORTS.

Swansea, 1 in 251; Bristol, 1 in 245; Southampton, 1 in 194; Yarmouth, 1 in 168; Hull, 1 in 105; Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1 in 95; Sunderland, 1 in 95; Tynemouth, 1 in 60; South Shields, 1 in 45; Liverpool, 1 in 33.

It is often said that the beer-houses are more productive of crime and vice than public-houses. In Manchester we have nearly twice as many beer-houses as there are in Liverpool, and Liverpool has more than three times as many public-houses as there are in Manchester. Let us compare the two towns with respect to the drunkenness and vice in them.

LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER COMPARED IN 1864.

(The judicial statistics for 1865 not yet received.)

In Manchester we have an enormous amount of pauperism and preventible poverty. Let us see how Liverpool stands in this in comparison with Manchester.

Sir George Grey's Public-house Closing Act came into operation on December 1, 1864, and was consequently in force ten months of the year ending September 29, 1865, and has continued in force since.

LIVERPOOL IN RESPECT TO PAUPERISM.

rliamentary paper just issued, it appears there were indoor and outdoor

paupers relieved 1st June 1866.

The crime of Liverpool appears to be increasing every year at a rate out of all proportion with the rate of increase of the population. A few days ago, Baron Martin, in charging the grand jury at Liverpool, said, that "never since he had been on the bench had he seen a more deplorable calendar than that of the present assizes, particularly with reference to the serious nature of the crimes. Sixteen of the cases were of homicide, and in his opinion several of the cases put down as manslaughter ought really to have been styled murder......They were the worst list of cases of homicide that he had ever seen-he did not think he had ever seen anything so bad during the course of a long experience on the bench." On the same day, before sentencing a person charged with manslaughter, his lordship stated that "this case arose out of drunkenness, which seemed to be the cause of nine-tenths of all the crime that was committed."

At the Salford Hundred Quarter Session, held a few weeks since, Mr. Edmund Ashworth, one of the visiting justices, made a remark which ought not to be omitted in this paper. He said, "In the borough of Liverpool they had nearly 10,000 prisoners a year, and the recommitals were 58 per cent., while the number of prisoners to the population of the borough of Liverpool was 1 to 45-the extreme of criminality of any population in the north of England, but the sentences there only average 35 days. Some of the Liverpool magistrates had an opinion in favour of giving a license to sell liquor to almost every house for which an application was made; and looking at that state of things, and the figures already given, it appeared that Liverpool was the most drunken, and had the highest range of criminality of any town, perhaps, in England. Hence it became the duty of the authorities to consider a little the position they occupied." At this time, when cholera has invaded our shores, I cannot conclude without some reference to the alarming mortality in Liverpool-so alarming that the medical papers speak of Liverpool as a national danger." A Liverpool paper, of the 9th instant, thus speaks of the mortality there: "Thousands of pounds have been expended in attempting to remove the causes of disease and death, and to introduce better sanitary regulations; yet fever and other contagious diseases not only exist but prevail to an alarming extent, increasing the bills of mortality so fearfully above the average of the United Kingdom that six thousand lives were sacrificed during the past year, which, in the opinion of Dr. Trench, would have been saved if Liverpool had been as healthy as other towns."

This statement is so appalling that it may well occasion apprehension, and attract the attention of comparative strangers to this town as a "national danger." The subjoined Table shows the number of inquests held in Liverpool and Manchester respectively, from 1856 till 1865:

The population of the districts included in 1861 was-Liverpool, 443,938; Man

chester, 357,979.