Perhaps, Eusebius, you never considered that you have only right and title to a certain limited area, to live and breathe in, in this your beloved country. Your area is becoming more circumscribed every day. People are approximating fearfully. You may come to touch very disagreeable people; at present you are only a few yards apart. There are two things, according to this Census, threatening you—“density” and “proximity.” For “density” a French writer proposes “specific population after the analogy of specific gravity,” so that if there be an accelerating ratio, you may be run in upon and crushed by your neighbours, after the annihilating principle of some of our railroads. I remember when a boy hearing an old gentleman make a curious calculation, equalising rights to the air we breathe. He came to the conclusion that a man who smoked tobacco took up more room in the atmosphere than he had any right to. This, now that we are so rapidly approximating, ought, you will think, to come under the consideration of the Legislature. See your danger—“the people of England were on an average one hundred and fifty-three yards asunder in 1801, and one hundred and eight yards asunder in 1851.” Thus the regular goers, the world-walkers, are coming in upon you; but there are some as erratic as comets, whose contiguity you will dread. I say this is your danger, for you do not suppose such infinite pains would have been taken, and such vast expense incurred, merely out of idle curiosity to give you this information. Perhaps it is kindly meant to give you a hint that your room would be preferred to your company. “Tempus abire tibi est.” More than this—not only persons, but houses are encroaching upon each other. “The mean distance apart of their houses was three hundred and sixty-two yards in 1801, and two hundred and fifty-two yards in 1851.” You see, then, you must not only set yourself in order to depart, but you must “set your house in order” also. It is really astonishing that the Census Commission should have taken such a world of trouble in making calculations which, at first sight, look so puerile; we must only conclude, that somehow or other the labour is as much worth the hire, as the labourer is worthy _his_ hire.