In 1842, the number of criminal offenders committed for trial was 31,309, and of those convicted 22,733, and the number continued increasing till 1854. Subsequently there was a decrease both in the number of persons committed for trial and convicted, attributed in part, to the Criminal Justice Act of 1855, which authorised magistrates to pass sentences for short periods, with the consent of the prisoners. The number convicted in 1868 was 15,033; during the last ten years the number has averaged 11,600.

2. Scotland.

Scotland has an area of 29,820 square miles, including its islands, 186 in number, with a population (including military in barracks and seamen on board vessels in the harbours), according to the census of 1881, of 3,735,573 souls, giving 125 inhabitants to the square mile. More than three-fourths of the surface of the country is sterile, consisting of mountains, morasses, and other waste lands. Out of the total, computed at 19,084,659 acres, only 4,845,805 acres were cultivated in 1885, 829,476 acres being under wood.

The country is divided into 33 civil counties, grouped under eight geographical divisions. The following table gives the results of the census, excluding the military in barracks and the seamen on board vessels in the harbours on the 4th of April, 1881:

The number of inhabited houses in Scotland in 1881 was 739,005; uninhabited, 59,697; building, 4,990.

The following table exhibits the numbers of the population of Scotland at the dates of the several enumerations, together with the increase between each census, and the percentage of increase:

Dates of enumeration

Increase

Percentage of decennial increase

Population

The following table shows the occupations of the people accord

ing to the census of 1881 :-

The population of the eight principal towns of Scotland was as follows in 1881:

The total represented more than a third of the population of Scotland. In 1871 the total town and village population was 2,338,697, and the rural population 1,021,321; in 1881 the former was 2,754,736, showing an increase of 416,039, or 17.7 per cent., while the latter was 980,837, showing a decrease of 40,484, or 3.96 per

cent.

In the returns of the 'Modern Domesday Book' of 1875-76 the number of landowners possessing more than an acre is given at 19,225, and of those possessing less than an acre at 113,005. (See p. 248.)

The following table gives the number of births, deaths, and marriages in Scotland, in each of the ten years 1876 to 1885:

The average proportion of illegitimate births in 1885 was 8.5 per cent., the rate varying from 4.7 per cent. in Ross and Cromarty to 17.1 per cent. in Banff. The mean birth-rate in the ten years 1874-83 was 3.441 per cent. (3.23 for the year 1885); death-rate, 2.084 per cent.; and marriage-rate, 0·702 per cent.

The number of registered paupers and their dependents, exclusive of casual poor, who were in receipt of relief in parishes of Scotland during the ten years from 1876 to 1885, on the 14th of May in each year, is shown in the subjoined table :

The number of criminal offenders, committed for trial, and convicted, in each of the ten years from 1876 to 1885, was as follows:

It will be seen from the above tables that, notwithstanding a large increase of population, there was on the whole a diminution of crime, and a considerable decrease of pauperism, in Scotland during the decennial period.

3. Ireland.

Ireland has an area of 32,531 square miles, or 20,819,982 acres, inhabited, in 1881, by 5,174,836 souls. This gives a density of population of a little less than 160 inhabitants per square mile, or considerably less than one-half of that of England. On the basis of the population of 1884, the density amounts to little more than 152 inhabitants per square mile.

The movement of the population of Ireland since the beginning of the century was very different from that of England and Scotland. There was an increase, slow at first, and then rapid, from 1801 to 1841, and a decrease, more rapid than the previous increase, from 1841 to 1871. At the census of 1801 the population of Ireland was 5,395,456; in 1811 it had risen to 5,937,856; in 1821 to 6,801,827; in 1831 to 7,767,401; and in 1841 to 8,175,124. At the next census, that of 1851, the population was found to have sunk to 6,552,385, representing a decline of nearly 20 per cent. decline during the decennial period 1851 to 1861 was 8-10 per cent.; during the period from 1861 to 1871 it was 6.83 per cent.; while during the last decennial period, from 1871 to 1881, it amounted to 4.4 per cent. During the three years from 1881 to 1884 the decline of the population of Ireland was 35 per cent., or at the rate of 1.16 per cent. per annum. The subjoined table gives the results of the enumerations of April 3, 1871, and of April 3, 1881, together with the decrease, in numbers and rate per cent., between 1871 and 1881:—

The area and the population of the counties of the four provinces of Ireland were found to be as follows at the census of April 3,

1881: