"During the first ten of the last thirty years--that is, from 1821 to 1831--the population increased at the rate of about 5000 a-year. During the second ten of these years--that is, from 1831 to 1841--it increased at the rate of 8000 a-year. During the third ten of these years--that is, from 1841 to 1851--it is believed, on good grounds, that the increase will average 12,000 a-year. Let any man consider these facts, and then, if he has courage to look forward at all, let him try _to picture to himself the state of Glasgow when another thirty years shall have run their course_. If the same ratio of increase holds on--and I know of no good reason for doubting that it will--we shall have in thirty years a population nearly equal in numbers to that of Paris; and most assuredly, if the Christian churches do not speedily arouse themselves, it will be by that time like Paris in more respects than one. We may have the numbers of the French capital, but we shall have _their infidelity, their Popery, their licentiousness, and their lawlessness too_. If our efforts did not keep pace with a population growing at the rate of 5000 a-year, how are such efforts to do alongside of a population growing at the rate of from 12,000 to 15,000 a-year? If in the race of the last thirty years we fell at least twenty years behind, how tremendously and how ruinously shall we be distanced in the next thirty years to come! 'If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses! And if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swellings of Jordan!'" We select this as a picture of our great manufacturing towns, in which the greatest and most unbounded prosperity, so far as mere production goes, has prevailed, generally speaking, for the last thirty years; in which the custom-house duties have increased, since 1812, from £3000 a-year to £660,000, and the river dues from £4500 to £66,000 in the same period; but in which the sums expended in poor-rates and pauper burials were, in round numbers,-- Poor Rates. Pauper Burials. 1848 £180,000 4042 1849 132,000 3577 1850 120,000[11] 2381 Indicating the deplorable destitution of multitudes in the midst of this growing wealth and unparalleled increase of manufacturing and commercial greatness. In the last year, out of 10,461 burials, no less than 2381, or nearly _a fourth_, were at the public expense.[12] [11] Including buildings £87,000; for poor alone. [12] Dr STRANG'S _Report_, 1851. Of the wretched condition of a large class of the operatives of Glasgow--that employed in making clothes for the rest of the community--the following striking account has been given in a recent interesting publication on the "Sweating System," by a merchant tailor of the city:--