By returns from the Poor-law Board, presented to the House
of Commons on Tuesday, it appears that there was spent for the relief of the poor in England and Wales in the six summer months ending last Michaelmas, nearly 200,000/. less than in the same period of 1849; and that on the 1st January last there were relieved 71,183 fewer paupers than on the 1st Januany 1850. The amelioration was not confined to the manufacturing counties ; the reduction of paupers was 6 per cent in Bedfordshire, 4 per cent in Berkshire, 8 per cent in Devonshire 41 per cent in Dorsetshire, 10 per cent in Kent and the East Riding of Yorkshire. The greatest decrease was in Warwickshire-22 per cent.
The quarterly returns of marriages, births, and deaths, in England, show a continuously favourable progression. The returns of marriages relate to the summer quarter, ending 30th September 1850. The marriages were 37,496; two thousand more than in the summer quarter since the registration has been established. Except in the Eastern and South-eastern counties, the increase has been general in all the great divisions of the country. In the purely agricultural counties, marriage still went on slowly, but steadily ; in all the iron and coal fields, at but a slightly increasing rate : while in all the counties peopled by the workers in lace, silk, wool, and cotton, the number of marriages—of new families established—has increased at a rate of which there are few examples in the returns of the last hundred years.
"in London the increase has been considerable; in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, and Bedfordshire, it has probably kept pace with the population; in Wiltshire, Dorsetsbire, and Cornwall; in Gloucestershire, Shropshire, and Staffordshire, the increase has been still more marked; in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, and the West Riding of Yorkshire, however, the greater part of the excess has arisen. Northumberland, Cumberland, and South Wales, exhibit nearly the same increase as the Midland Counties. Among the counties in which the marriages have decreased, or have not sensibly increased, may be named—Kent, Hampshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Devonshire, Lincolnshire, the East and North Ridings of York, Westmoreland, and North Wales. The marriages at Brighton increased from 133 in the summer of 1847. and 113 in 1848, to 177; at Cheltenham, from 80 to 105; at Clifton, from 88 to 115. At Wolstanton, Buri.lem, and Stoke-upon-Trent, among the potteries, the multiplication of marriages is remarkable. In the iron districts of Dudley, Walsall, Birmingham, and Merthyr Tydfil, the advance was slow or inconsiderable. At Coventry, as well as Spitalfields, Whitechapel, the seats of the silk trade, the marriages increased rapidly; as they did also at Leicester, Nottingham, and Derby, at Stockport and Macclesfield. At Manchester the marriages rose from 1097 to 1442; at Preston, from 159 to 281; Halifax, from 215 to 313; Leeds from 418 and 359 to 488; Newcastleon-Tyne from 293 to 318; Carlisle from 39 to 53; Merthyr Tydfil from 100 to 213." The births and deaths are those returned in the quarter ending 30th December 1850. The births were the greatest number ever registered in an autumn quarter-146,268. The births are in general most numerous in the spring quarter, and were so in the spring of 1850. They have since greatly exceeded the numbers registered in previous years in all the divisions of the kingdom, whether agricultural or manufacturing—in counties ravaged by cholera, and in counties left unscathed by that plague. The deaths were fewer than in any autumn quarter since 1839, except in 1845; they were 92,023. The chances of life in the autumn quarter of 1845 were 197 to 1 in favour of every person ; in the autumn quarter of 1850 they were 196 to 1 in favour of every person. The excess of births over deaths. was 54,245. The usual excess is forty thousand more births than deaths; the excess in the last quarter of 1846 was 50,000; in 1847, when influenza was epidemic, only 24,000; in 1849, when the cholera epidemic was rapidly declining, $8,000. "In the same quarter 56,971 emigrants left the ports of the United Kingdom at which there are Government emigration-officers ; 3836 departed from Irish ports, 1903 from Glasgow and Greenock and 51,232 from three English ports— namely, 1702 from Plymouth, 4232 from London, and 45,248 from Liverpool. During the whole of the year 1850, the births were 593,667, the deaths 369,679, and consequently the excess of births over deaths was 223,888 in England • in the same year 280,843 emigrants sailed from the shores of the United Kingdom-2l4,606 (many of them of Irish birth) from England ; 15,154 from Scotland, and 61,083 from Ireland. The number of births and deaths in Scotland and Ireland is unknown, and the census alone can disclose at what precise rats the population increases ; but we know that the new births more than replace the vast armies of peaceful emigrants that every year assemble without much noise, and, led apparently. by the same kind of divine instinet that directs other migrations, leave their native land to seek homes in regions prepared for them all over the world."
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