These are the results exhibited in England and Wales. The poor's rates since 1837 have doubled in real weight, and we need not say that they are calculated to awaken the most alarming reflections; the more especially when it is recollected that the year 1849 was one of reviving, and, during its last six months, of boasted commercial prosperity. But the matter becomes much more serious, and the picture of the social condition of the island much more correct and striking, when the simultaneous measures, adopted during the last five years in Scotland and Ireland, are taken into consideration. We need not tell our readers that, prior to 1844, Ireland had no poor law at all; and that although Scotland had a most humane and admirable poor law on its statute-book, yet its operation had been so much frittered away and nullified, by the unhappy decision of the Court of Session, which gave no control to the _local_ courts over the decisions of the heritors and kirk-sessions (church-wardens of parishes), thereby in effect rendering them judges without control in their own cause, that it, practically speaking, amounted to almost nothing. But as the evils of that state of things had become apparent, and had been demonstrated _luce meridianâ clarius_, by Dr Alison and other distinguished philanthropists, an efficient statute was passed in 1845, which corrected this evil, and has since produced the following results, which may well attract the notice of the most inconsiderate, from the rapid increase which pauperism exhibits, and the extraordinary magnitude it has already attained in Scotland-- | | | Number of Poor, | | |Years | Sums raised | fixed and casual | Registered Paupers | |------+-------------+----------------------+--------------------| |1840 | £202,812 | | | |1841 | 218,481 | | | |1844 | 258,814 | | | |1845 | 306,044 | 63,070 or 1 in 42 | 62,070 or 1 in 42 | |1846 | 435,367 | 69,432 -- 1 -- 38 | 69,432 -- 1 -- 38 | |1847 | 533,073 | 146,370 -- 1 -- 17.8 | 74,161 -- 1 -- 35.3| |1848 | 583,613 | 227,647 -- 1 -- 11.5 | 77,732 -- 1 -- 33.7| |1849 | | 202,120 -- 1 -- 12.96| 82,357 -- 1 -- 31.8| --_Poor-Law Report, Scotland_, Aug. 1849. In the year 1850, a year of unusual commercial prosperity, the sums assessed for the relief of the poor in Glasgow alone, irrespective of buildings and other expenses connected with them, was £87,637, and with these expenses £121,000.[8] [8] DR YOUNG'S _Report_, Jan. 1851