Boogs or REVERENCE. — We welcome the annual issue (the
fifty - eighth) • of Thom's Official Directory (Alexander Thom and Co., 21s.) This volume, consisting of two thousand pages, furnishes the usual information found in calendars, official guides, a compressed Army List and Navy List, and other matters. Its speciality is in Irish affairs, to which we may say some two-thirds of the volume are devoted. The Irish statistics are peculiarly interesting. There are 36,000 owners of less than an acre, nearly half being in Leinster. Th total number of owners in the island was (in 1876) nearly 70,000 It would be interesting to have another return showing us what advance has been made in purchase during the quarter of a century. Of owners above 10,000 acres there were between 300 and 400. The largest area was held by Mr. Richard Berridge, 159,898 acres, valued at £6,321. There were five others above 100,000 acres,—viz., Marquess Conyngham, 156,973 (£32,644); Lord Lansdowne, 120,616 (.£31,536); Lord Kenmare, 118,606 (34,473); Marquess of Sligo, 114,881 (21 6,157); and the Marquess of Downshire, 110,172 (X91,552). In 1899 there were 584,285 holders of land, great and small, show- ing an increase of between 7,000 and 8,000 on the previous year.----The London Manual for 1901, edited by Robert Ronald (E. Lloyd, ls. 6d.), is especially interesting, as giving parti- culars of the development of local government brought about by the Act constituting the new municipalities. The editor speaks hopefully on the subject in his preface. There are five sections, "Political London" (where we observe a misprint of 1855 for 1885), "Central Governing Authorities," and "Other Central Services," "London Boroughs." and "Poor Law." The total rateable value is £37,535,318, of which £28,403 is described as rateable value of agricultural land. (About a quarter of this is in Lewisham Union and another quarter in Wandsworth.) In the equalisation of rates the City is the largest payer (£106,628), and Islington the largest reeeiver (423,455), with Camberwell next (.£22,954). By a curious coincidence Matthew Arnold classes these two together. Why hurry, he says (we quote from memory), from a "dismal and illiberal life at Camberwell to a life equally dismal and illiberal at Islington:"
Previous page
