Number of Paupers in receipt of relief in Ireland-continued. The number of criminal offenders committed for trial, and either convicted or acquitted, was as follows during the fourteen years from 1849 to 1862 : The unexampled decrease, amounting to more than 600 per cent., in the number of persons committed for trial in Ireland, in the course of fourteen years, is partly due to the improvement of the police and judicial organisation, yet is, nevertheless, a sign of vast social progress. 4. Islands in the British Seas. The population of the Islands in the British Seas, forming part of Great Britain, was as follows according to the census of March 31, 1851, and of April 8, 1861 :— Between 1831 and 1841 the population of the islands collectively increased about 18 per cent., and between 1841 and 1851 about 15 per cent. Between 1851 and 1861 a decrease took place in the Isle of Man and in Jersey; while Guernsey would also have shown a decrease but for the circumstance of military force in that island as well as in Alderney having been larger in 1861 than at the previous census. 5. Emigration from the United Kingdom. Official returns* state the number of emigrants who left the United Kingdom during the last fifteen years to be very nearly three millions and a half. The following table gives the number of emigrants for each of the fifteen years, the last column including all individuals not enumerated under the three chief destinations:- Emigration considerably increased in 1863; the number of persons who left the country during the first.six months of the year 1863 amounting to 121,765. The number that emigrated during the years 1815 to the end of June 1863 was as follows:-1,234,506 to the North American colonies; 3,238,579 to the United States; 802,152 to the Australian colonies and New Zealand (from 1825 to 1863); and 105,599 to all other places, making a total of 5,380,836. As seen in the above table, the emigration of 1862 exceeded the emigration of 1861 by upwards of 29,000 souls, and was larger than the average of the four previous years, but fell much short of the emigration of 1855, 1856, and 1857, and was less than two-fifths of the emigration of the eight years from 1847 to 1855. The greatest * Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom, No. 10, London, 1863. decrease, both in 1861 and 1862, was in the emigration to the United States. In 1861 this emigration had fallen to 49,764, equal to 54·22 per cent. of the whole emigration of that year. In 1862 it rose to 58.706, but its proportion to the whole emigration was even less than in 1861, being only 48.43 per cent.; in fact, its proportion to the whole emigration was smaller in 1862 than in any year since 1841. In the twenty-one years which elapsed since 1841, the proportion of the emigration to the United States to the whole emigration has varied from 79.78 per cent. to 48 43, the average being 61.93. The decrease since 1860 was evidently the result of the civil war. The same cause increased the proportion of the emigration to British North America. Between 1849 and 1862 the proportion of that emigration to the whole emigration varied from 5.55 per cent. in 1859 to 13.85 per cent. in 1861. In 1862 it amounted to 12.80 per cent. Nevertheless, the emigration to British North America, though proportionally large, was absolutely small. With the exception of the years 1858 to 1861, it was the smallest since 1839. Of the whole number of emigrants, 49,680, or 40.98 per cent., were Irish. This proportion was larger in 1862 than in 1861, and in some recent years, and seems to indicate an increase of pressure upon the labouring class in Ireland. Whenever that is the case the remittances sent home to their friends in Ireland by those who have preceded them afford a ready means of extending the emigration. The amount returned as sent home in 1862 was 463,0247., making in the sixteen years for which there are returns a total of 12,642,0007. But these returns are acknowledged to be very imperfect, as they contain none of the remittances through the post or through private hands, or through many banks or mercantile houses. Of the 121,214 emigrants from the United Kingdom in the year 1862, there were 70,522 males, and 50,992 females; 87,382 were adults, and 18,238 children under twelve years of age-3,510 of them not a year old; the age of the residue of the emigrants was not recorded; 23,579 of the adults were married, and 63,803 single; of the married there were above 2,000 more women than men. 12,854 of the women were wives, and 24.240 were single; but the single men were more in number-namely, 39,563. Among the men there were 1,667 gentlemen, professional men, and merchants, 4,127 farmers, 2,438 agricultural labourers, gardeners, and carters, 1,720 miners and quarrymen, 765 seamen, 938 carpenters, 568 spinners and weavers, 499 bricklayers, 406 tailors, 378 painters, glaziers, and plumbers, 300 shoemakers, 750 clerks, and 120 domestic servants. Of the women 8,983 are classed as domestic and farm servants, nurses, &c.; 378 as dressmakers and needlewomen; and 179 as gentlewomen and governesses. In the last twenty-three years 276,837 emigrants have been sent out to Australia by the Government Emigration Board; 38,420 of them were nominated in virtue of contributions in the colony from private sources, amounting to 164,2907. The total passage money was 3,669,0887. 6. Wealth of the Population. The following return, published in pursuance to an order of the House of Commons of June 30, 1863, shows the population, the gross receipt of the revenue, after deducting repayments, allowances, discounts, drawbacks, and bounties of the nature of drawbacks, and excluding therefrom miscellaneous receipts, and the rate per head of the population of such revenue; also the amount of property and profits assessed for the income tax, the amount of income per head of the population, and the poundage of said taxation on such income, for Great Britain and Ireland in the year ending the 31st day of March 1862 : The declared real value of the total imports and exports of merchandise into and from the United Kingdom for the years 1860, 1861, and 1862 was as follows: |