priest asserting that women are not to be found there; the reply being— “Women there are, but I’m afraid They cannot find a priest.” “On St Kilda,” says the Census, “there is a manse and a church, but no medical man—no clergyman resident on the island.” Will the world be better, Eusebius, for all these statistics; will civilisation be one jot advanced, by _registering_ our tailors as well as their paletots?—by knowing how many tinkers there are in the world to mend our kettles? They will, be sure of it, trudge about just the same, and do their work as badly or as well as before. All trades will be governed by their own instincts, without the least difference; unless, indeed, statistics take a more useful turn, and fix their stigma upon the adulterators of goods. We may have reason to say something in favour of the ScrutinizerGeneral, when he can tell us where the wines called port are manufactured that never came from Portugal, and who make them; who adulterates our drugs, so that people are dying for lack of the genuine; who, in fact, poison all we eat and drink, and put devils’-dust on our backs for woollen cloth. It is very little to the purpose to have the number of thieves and rascals that infest the world, if the Augean stable of crime is left uncleansed. If dishonesty should ever be driven out of common trades, which it has so notoriously infected, a great thing would be done; and we might bear with a grateful quietude more numbering and registering of us and all our concerns than we quite like; although it surely is not necessary for this to carry on such espionage as this Census contains. Perhaps even its absurdity is dangerous, for it induces people to fix their minds upon that, not upon its ulterior purposes. While men are laughing at things, wilily ridiculous in themselves, they know not what mischief is secretly brewing. I maintain that it is a great offence in any way to touch the sanctity of the hearth—that what economists and statistic inventors may please to call public liberty, should be allowed to destroy home liberty. It is something monstrous that every one should be obliged to give an account of every inmate in his house, their ages, conditions, and their relationship. It is better to let some of the peccadilloes of life escape notice, than register them and the house. If Miss or Mrs Debora Wilkins shall receive under her hospitality a big nephew, it is very hard upon her to be obliged to certify the exact relationship, or induce her into the great error of writing down a falsehood. Men may be a little more careless in such matters, but feminine nicety is touched to the quick. I remember once an Irishman walking into a drawing-room, and introducing to the lady of the house a tall youth, as, “Give me leave to introduce my nephew;” then putting his hand aside of his mouth, he added, in a whisper which may be truly termed Irish, for it was quite as