leaves the county for that of Hereford. The communication by rail between the Metropolis and Liverpool includes Salop in the advantages consequent thereupon, by the opening of the Shrewsbury and Birmingham line, and the Shrewsbury and Chester; while a direct intercourse is maintained with Staffordshire and the Pottery district by means of the Shrewsbury and Stafford branch of the Shropshire Union railway. There are also two other lines projected, or in progress; one to be called the Crewe and Shrewsbury Extension, the other the Severn Valley Line; the latter will pass through the extensive coal and iron district before mentioned. ECCLESIASTICAL and CIVIL DIVISIONS, and REPRESENTATION.—Shropshire is in the province of Canterbury, and includes parts of the several diocesses of Hereford, Lichfield and Coventry, and St. Asaph. It is included in the Oxford circuit, and divided into fourteen hundreds or districts, comprising two hundred and fourteen parishes, and eleven parts of parishes, containing one county town (Shrewsbury), and sixteen other market towns. The whole county, before the Reform Bill passed, returned twelve members to parliament, namely, two each for Bishop’s Castle, Bridgnorth, Ludlow, Shrewsbury and Wenlock, and two for the shire. The new act deprived Bishop’s Castle of its ancient privilege, and gave two additional members to the county at large; the number of representatives is, therefore, the same as heretofore. The shire is divided into two representative districts, named the Northern Division and the Southern Division. The former comprises the hundreds of Oswestry, Pimhill, North and South Bradford, and the liberty of Shrewsbury; and the Southern Division includes the hundreds of Brimstrey, Cherbury, Condover, Ford, Manslow, Overs, Purslow (including Clun and Stoddesdon), and the franchise of Wenlock. The return of members for the Northern Division of the county is made from Shrewsbury, and for the Southern from Church Stretton. Besides the place of return, the Northern Division polls at Oswestry, Whitchurch, and Wellington; and the Southern Division at Bridgnorth, Ludlow, Bishop’s Castle, Clun, Shiffnall, and Wenlock. The members returned at the general election in 1852, for the Northern Division, were William Ormsby Gore, Esquire, of Porkington Hall, Oswestry, and John Whitehall Dodd, Esquire, of Cloverley Hall, Whitchurch, both in this county; and for the Southern Division, the Honourable Robert Henry Clive, 53, Grosvenor-street, London, and Viscount Newport, Wilton-crescent, London (all four re-elected). POPULATION, &c.—By the returns made to Government at the census of 1851, Shropshire contained 114,340 males and 115,001 females—total 229,341; exhibiting an increase, over the returns of 1841, of 3,521 persons. The annual value of Real Property in this county, as assessed to the Poor Rates in 1850, amounted to £1,195,032. * * * * * Distance Table of Towns in Shropshire.