"We shall impress the disastrous importance of the reduction in the number of the people on our readers, by placing before them a brief account of the previous progress of the population. There is good reason to suppose, that, prior to the middle of the last century, the people continually, though slowly, increased; but from that time something like authentic but imperfect records give the following as their numbers at successive periods:— 1754 2,372,634 1767 2,544,276 Increase per cent. 7·2 1777 2,690,556 " 5·7 1785 2,845,932 " 5·8 1805 5,359,456 " 84·0 1813 5,937,858 " 10·8 1821 6,801,829 " 14·6 1831 7,767,401 " 14·9 1841 8,175,124 " 5·3 1851 6,515,794 Decrease 20·0 "Though there are some discrepancies in these figures, and probably the number assigned to 1785 is too small, and that assigned to 1805 too large, they testify uniformly to a continual increase of the people for eighty-seven years, from 1754 to 1841. Now, for the first time in nearly a century, a complete change has set in, and the population has decreased in the last ten years 20 per cent. It is 1,659,330 less than in 1841, and less by 286,033 than in 1821. "But this is not quite all. The census of 1851 was taken 68 days earlier than the census of 1841; and it is obvious, if the same rate of decrease continued through those 68 days, as has prevailed on the average through the ten years, that the whole amount of decrease would be so much greater. Sixty-eight days is about the 54th part of ten years—say the 50th part; and the 50th part of the deficiency is 33,000 odd—say 30,000. We must add 30,000, therefore, to the 1,659,330, making 1,689,330, to get the true amount of the diminution of the people in ten years.