Proceeding, without further comment, to examine the Tables in detail, it must be remarked that Mr. Mann’s formula for distributing the dateless buildings is open to very strong objections. It is not, however, necessary to enter upon those objections at this point, because the operation of the rule with regard to the churches (which shall be dealt with first) happens by accident to be very nearly right—the number assigned to the year 1831 corresponding pretty closely with the number arrived at by the census inquiries in that year. Mr. Mann’s next step, however, is begging the question with a vengeance. The circumstance that churches now-a-days contain on the average 377 sittings, affords not the least ground for supposing that the average capacity of churches was 377, fifty years ago. On the contrary, it is absolutely impossible, from the nature of church extension in modern times, that the average should have remained stationary. First of all, everybody knows that churches in large towns are, generally speaking, much more spacious than those in the rest of the country; and unless, therefore, the proportion of large town and country churches has remained exactly the same, the general average capacity of churches must have been disturbed. Mr. Mann’s Table 14 deprives him of any excuse he might have had for overlooking this obvious fact. From that table we learn that there were in 1851:— Churches. Sittings. In large town districts 3,457 1,995,729 In residue of the country 10,620 3,322,186 14,077 5,317,915 —exactly the same as in the general table given above. In 1801, however, matters were different. There were then— Churches. Sittings. In large town districts 2,163 1,248,702 In residue of the country 9,216 2,882,983 11,379 4,131,685