2. Among most of the other nations in question the compulsory system is in its infancy. Denmark has only lately got rid of slavery, and her poor laws date from 1798. Those of Sweden, in their present form, of Mecklenburg, Saxony, Wurtemberg and Bavaria, all bear the appearance of recency. In Wurtemberg assessments had been long obsolete, until they were re-introduced during the famine of 1817. The only country in which the compulsory system appears to have continued as long as it has in England, is that in which it has produced effects resembling those which have followed it with us, namely, the Canton de Berne. [Sidenote: 3. Small number of persons wholly dependent on wages.] 3. Another circumstance which renders compulsory relief less dangerous in the countries which we have been considering than in our own, is the economical situation of their labouring population. In England the great mass of the people are day-labourers, enjoying, where they have escaped the oppression of poor law abuses, high wages and steady employment, but possessed of little visible property, and seldom living under their masters’ roof. Such persons are not deterred from demanding relief by the fear of losing their property, since, where they have any, it is capable of concealment; and they need not always even fear degradation, since the fact of their receiving it may often be concealed. There are many instances in the Poor Law Evidence in which the masters, and even the companions of paupers, were not aware of their receiving allowance. But the class of persons without visible property, which constitutes the bulk of English society, forms the small minority of that of the north of Europe. The Norwegian return states, (698 and 699) that at the last census in 1825, out of a population of 1,051,318 persons, there were 59,464 freeholders. As by 59,464 freeholders must be meant 59,464 heads of families, or about 300,000 individuals, the freeholders must form more than a fourth of the whole population. Mr. Macgregor states (p. 300) that in Denmark (by which Zealand and the adjoining islands are probably meant), out of a population of 926,110, the number of landed proprietors and farmers is 415,110, or nearly one-half. In Sleswick Holstein, out of a population of 604,085, it is 196,017, or about one-third. The proportion of proprietors and farmers to the whole population is not given in Sweden; but the Stockholm return estimates the average quantity of land annexed to a labourer’s habitation at from one to five acres (p. 375); and though the Gottenburg return gives a lower estimate, it adds, that the peasants possess much of the land. (p. 387.) In Wurtemberg we are told that more than two-thirds of the labouring population are the proprietors of their own habitations, and that almost all own at least a garden of from three-quarters of an acre to an acre and a half. (p. 511.) All the returns concur in stating the number of day-labourers to be very small.