In dealing with the census of 1841, and compiling his tables with a view to show the relative occupations of the people, Mr Porter has adopted the ingenious plan of massing commerce, trade, and manufactures together, and exhibiting the aggregate of these in contradistinction to the purely agricultural interest! At page 55 of the last edition of his _Progress of the Nation_ we find this statement--"The following more elaborate table of the occupations of the population of Great Britain, as ascertained in 1841, his been compiled from the Reports of the Census Commissioners. _It affords the best abstract_ that has hitherto been attainable upon this important branch of political arithmetic." We turn to the table indicated in this modest passage, and we find the following results for Great Britain alone:-- Persons engaged in commerce,} trade, and manufacture, } 3,092,787 Agriculture, 1,490,785 Labour not agricultural, 758,495 This, of course, is exclusive of the army, navy, learned professions, domestic servants, and various other employments, besides women and children. In another table, Mr Porter, estimating the male population of Great Britain, (excluding Ireland,) who were then upwards of twenty years of age, at 4,761,091, divides them thus:-- Agriculture, 1,198,156 Trade, manufactures, &c., 2,125,496 Other classes, 1,437,439 --------- 4,761,091 If, as Mr Spackman most properly observes in his excellent work, the _Analysis of the Occupations of the People_, one of the principal objects of taking the census is to trace the relative degree of dependence of one class upon another, how can this be done if all the trade and commerce of the country is to be mixed up with manufactures? "Mr Porter would have us to consider trade and commerce, _and manufactures_ as synonymous terms, and that together they only form one class; and he seems to be so thoroughly haunted with the numerical weakness of the manufacturing interest, that his fear of its being discovered peeps out in every paragraph; and, by mixing them up in every table in which they are mentioned in his book, with those engaged in trade and commerce, he has effectually succeeded in his object." As we propose to lay before our readers the results of Mr Spackman, it may be proper shortly to state the principles which have guided him in his classification of the official returns. He recognises but two great classes of the community engaged in the production of wealth, and upon these he justly considers the whole of the remainder to be dependent. The following extract from his preface will sufficiently explain his view:--