ence to which we have solicited attention, it will be found that Norfolk, Virginia, is the point selected as the great entrepot of southern commerce. The advantages of this selection have been too clearly and powerfully portrayed by the writers to require further illustration. If the South will, with one heart and one hand, unite upon this point, Norfolk will in a very few years prove a successful rival of New-York in commercial enterprise. ed, and the balance of trade very heavily against us. The rivalry then was between this nation and our foreign markets, principally English. With a contracted trade and limited capital, and that capital, limited as it was, principally foreign, our position among the commercial nations of the earth was, indeed, pitiable. To remedy this deplorable state of things, to lessen the ruinous balances of trade against us, was a subject well-calculated to attract the attention and excite the energies of every patriot citi- Timid men will talk of the disproporzen. New-York took the start in this tion of northern and southern capitallaudable and patriotic enterprise. Her the abundance in the North, the sparcity success has vastly exceeded our most in the South, and quote upon us the sanguine expectations, and has totally old mercantile dogma, (not less erroneous changed our position among the com- than old,) that capital would attract and mercial nations of the earth. We are command commerce. The converse of not now in a pitiable condition; our this old mercantile dogma is literally sails whiten every sea, our commerce true · commerce attracts, and compenetrates every port. With boundless mands capital. Surplus production is capital, and daily increasing commer- necessary to commercial relations; and cial resources, the day cannot be distant wherever that surplus product can be when we shall stand first on the list brought to a practicable mart, capital of commercial nations. This radical will most certainly seek and find it. It change in our position as a commercial is unnecessary to go into an elaborate nation, has given rise to a perfectly new rivalry, not foreign, but purely domestic; it exists at present between the Northern and Southern sections of our federation. Up to the present time the northern section has enjoyed almost the whole profits accruing from our foreign trade, giving to that section an amount of capital equal to a successful prosecution of the whole trade. Under this state of things the South has, and will continue to languish, until by a united, vigorous and successful effort, she regains her share of the profits arising from foreign commerce. The effort should not only be combined and vigorous, but to insure success it must be concentered. A point the most eligible on our southern Atlantic coast should be selected. Petty ocal prepossessions or prejudices, in avor of this point or that, should be sacrificed on the altar erected to southern interests, and an equal participation on the part of the South in all the advantages of foreign commerce. It is with regret that we express the opinion which, on reflection, will, we fear, be found true, that petty local jealousies have had much to do in retarding our onward march to wealth and power. By reference to the able correspond - argument to prove the correctness of this position. We have it too clearly demonstrated in the unexampled growth of new towns on our lakes and western waters. Regarding this position as conclusively settled, our attention is next directed to the character and quantity of surplus southern production. The production of cotton and sugar we know is confined to the southern section of our Union. Our surplus in cotton is in quantity, equal to every demand, and can be extended to an almost unlimited amount. At present we have no surplus production of sugar; not enough, indeed, for our domestic wants. This article though has to find an Atlantic port for its distribution. Tobacco is also an exclusive southern product, and an article entering largely in our foreign trade. The South, by concentrating her surplus products at any eligible point, can make that point the great emporium of foreign commerce. Whether the capital is at the point selected or not, it will, as certainly as the night follows the day, find its way there. The first step, then, to be taken in connection with the plan pro. posed by the correspondence, is to establish a direct trade between Norfolk and our ports on the Gulf of Mexico. The Sonth has of late acquired new territory for her enterprises, extending Recent Territorial Acquirements of the South. from the western bank of the river Sabine on the East, to the middle of the Rio Grande on the West, fronting the Gulf of Mexico, between three and four hundred miles; with a climate notoriously salubrious, and well adapted to the cultivation of cotton, sugar, tobacco and indigo; with a soil unsurpassed in fertility; with a flood of population overspreading it, and with already seven ports of entry within its limits (to wit): the ports of Sabine, Galveston, Matagorda, Arranzas, Brazos Santiago, &c., 127 and Brownsville. In a few years the exports from these ports alone would make any Atlantic seaport on which they centered an important commercial point. Norfolk is the natural point for concentration. Sail vessels can make a voyage between any port of the Gulf of Mexico and Norfolk in one-fourth less time than to any northern Atlantic seaport; and it will be conceded on all hands, that there is not a more eligible point for European trade on the whole Atlantic coast than Norfolk. ART. IV.-PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES-CENSUS OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY. [We have presented the statistics of the United States' census to our readers, as fast as they were published, and a large volume of them will be found in the "Industrial Resources," where they have been condensed, in comparison with previous returns, from the beginning of the government. We continue the subject, and will endeavor to finish it in the present volume of the Review, which will constitute the fourth of the Industrial Resources, and make that work, in every respect, complete. Mr. Kennedy, the able Superintendent of the Census Department, deserves the approval of every good citizen for the zeal and ability with which his labors have been discharged.] During the sixty years which preceded the census of 1850, the annual increase of population, as has been shown by the superintendent, and appears in our volumes, has been 34 per cent. By the census of 1851, it appears that the population of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the islands, including persons in the army, navy, and the merchant service, amounted to 27,619,866, of whom 13,536,052 were males, and 14,082,814 were females. This population is distributed as follows, viz: Ireland Houses. .1,047,735..3,176,727..3,339,067 which we can base statements, with reference to the progress of Ireland from time to time, must be made with reference to the termination of each ten years, ending in 1831, 1841, and 1851. The first census of Great Britain was taken in 1801, at which date the population amounted to 10,567,893. By the census of 1841, the population of Great Britain, and the islands of Jersey, Guernsey, and Man, amounted to 18,658,372. During each ten years, from 1801 to 1851, the actual increase was as follows, viz:-1,479,562-2,132,896 Males. Females. 2,184,542—2,260,749—2,227,438, being England and Wales. 3,280,961..8,762,588..9,160,180 at the rate of 14,18,15,14, and 12 percent. Scotland...... 366,650 1,363,622 1,507,162 respectively. The actual increase of the population in fifty years, has been 21,826. 65,511. 76,405 10,317,917; the rate per cent. in fifty years, 98; the annual rate per cent. being 137. seas Part of the Army and 167,604.... 4,717,172 13,536,052 14,082,814 There exists no official record of the population of England previous to the commencement of the present century. The first enumeration of the population of Ireland was made in 1813, but so imperfectly was the work accomplished that English statists place no reliance on the correctness of the returns, and make no use of them as the basis of calculation; so that the only tables upon With respect to Ireland and the returns of 1821, the number of inhabitants at that period was 6,801,827. In 1831, 7,767,401-increase, 965,574; rate per cent., 14, 19. In 1841, 8,175,124 — increase, 407,723; rate per cent., 5, 25. In 1851, 6,515,794-decrease, 1,659,330; rate per cent. 20. By this statement we perceive that the population of Ireland increased from 1821 to 1841, at the average rate of about one per cent per annum; while a decrease of 1,659,330 from 1841 to 1851, indicates a most appalling ing between the last two censuses, indiminution of population, amounting to two per cent. per annum, or 20 per cent. for the entire ten years-a reduction amounting to the total emigration from the whole United Kingdom from 1839 to 1850. The contemplation of such a state of affairs is the more melancholy, when we consider that the great diminution of population, in place of being equalized through the period of ten years, must have occurred mainly within one or two years; a reduction of population sinking the number of people to a lower point than it was in 1821, when the first census of Ireland was taken, and it would appear in still stronger light if we were to calculate the natural progress the population would have made up to 1846, the year of famine, and estimate what should be the present population, if no unnatural cause had operated to reduce it. The decrease extended to no less than 31 counties and cities, and varied from 9 to 31 per cent., while the only increase which occurred was confined to 9 towns and cities, to which many probably fled to find relief. The great est decrease occurred in the county of Cork, the population of which was reduced 222,246, viz.:- from 773,398 inhabitants in 1841, to 551,152 in 1851— equivalent to a reduction of 28 per cent. The decrease in the several provinces was as follows, viz. :-Leinster, 305,960; Munster,564,344; Ulster, 382,084; Connaught, 406,942. These startling and appalling facts proclaim the reality of the sufferings experienced from the famine in Ireland; and it is some consolation to feel that our distance did not preclude those efforts in her behalf by our own citizens and government, without which the desolation would have been even more strongly marked. During ten years, the population of the entire kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland increased from 26,833,496 to 27,452,262, or at the rate of a little more than half a million in ten years. In the last fifty years, England and Wales increased 102 per cent., (males, 105; females, 97.50) Scotland, 78 per cent., (males, 84; females, 73.) The population of the United States during the past fifty years has increased at the rate of 337 per cent., and in ten years interven creased from seventeen and a fraction millions to over twenty-three millions, or 36 per cent. During the same period, (leaving Ireland out of view,) the population of Great Britain increased at the rate of 12 per cent. during ten years, or 1 2-10 per cent. per annum. HOUSES.-By the last census, it appears that in the United States the number of houses occupied by free persons, amounted to 3,363,427. It would seem from the British reports, that the population of that country is supplied with houses almost in the precise proportion as in our own country. The proportion being so very near alike in the two countries, it would be, perhaps, satisfactory to institute some inquiry concerning the character of what are termed "houses," by the British census, that we may be enabled to judge of the propriety of estimating the degree of comfort enjoyed by the people, by their house accommodations. While our country cannot boast of the princely residences of European countries-the occupancy of which is limited to comparatively few persons-we think there is a general sufficiency and comfort in the house-accommodations of the American people, and that in the most remote regions of our country, they exhibit a very satisfactory degree of comfort and cleanliness where their accommodations are most limited. The fact is notorious that, where wretchedness is at all general, there will be found a population which formed habits and imbibed tastes in a foreign land. In comparing the population of Great Britain and Ireland with the inhabited houses, it appears that the whole number of houses in Great Britain amounts to 3,669,437, being nearly one house to each six persons. In Ireland, the number of inhabited houses amounts to 1,047,735, being the proportion of two houses to each thirteen persons. The fact is somewhat extraordinary, that almost precisely in proportion to the dimi nution of the Irish population since 1841, has been the reduction in the number of houses. By this is not meant the "Inhabited Houses," but the whole number, including inhabited and uninhabited, built and building, the number of which, in 1841, was 1,384,360 to 1,115,007 in 1851; being a reduction of 269,353. The fact is unquestioned, that Population of Belgium, Prussia and France. 129 The in a very great number of instances in of Ditricé, Director of the Statistical Ireland the term "house" should be un- Bureau. The subjects embraced, and derstood merely as applying to some- the divisions included, are public buildthing containing human beings, and ings enumerated as churches and houses not as indicating such a structure as the for prayer, school-houses, orphan and term usually signifies. poor asylums, buildings for the adminis-" BELGIUM-POPULATION AND HOUSES. tration of public affairs, justice, customs, -The population of Belgium, on the 31st &c.; buildings for ecclesiastical and December, 1845, amounted to 4,298,560; communal magistracies, military and on the 15th October, 1846, to 4,337,196. hospital buildings, private dwelling. In the cities of Belgium, the houses houses, factories, mills, &c., stables and inhabited amount to 170,455, and those barns; population, male and female, at uninhabited to 9,302. In the rural com- the ages of 5, 7, 14, 16, 19, 24, 32, 39, 45 munes, the inhabited houses number and 60th year, and those over 60. They 629,393; the uninhabited 20,411. Total are enumerated also according to relinumber of inhabited houses 799,848; gion, as far as respects Evangelical uninhabited, 29,713. Of these houses Christians, Roman Catholics, Greek 78.20 per cent. had but one (basement) Christians, Menonites and Jews. story; 18.32 per cent. were of two stories, deaf and dumb are returned as to age including the basement; and 3.48 per and sex, enumerating them at the ages cent. were of three or more stories, in- of 5, 15, 30, and over, respectively; and cluding the basement. Of the entire the blind are returned by age and sex at number of houses, 160,500 were insured the ages of 15, 30, and over 30, respecagainst fire for the average amount of tively. They enumerate their horses, 6,811 francs. One-fourth of the Belgian population is found inclosed in cities, and the other three-fourths spread over the rural communes. Of the number of dwelling-houses in cities, 72,407 had but one room for a family; 65,461 had two rooms; and 100,402 had three or more rooms for a family. In the rural communes, 82,047 houses had but one room for a family; 217,324 had two rooms, and 352,925 had three or more rooms for a family. PRUSSIA. For the first time the Prussion government has made provision for the publication of their statistics in an extended form. Their census was taken at the close of the year 1849, of which a portion of the results have been published in one large quarto volume, to be followed by two others, under the direction asses, mules, cattle, hogs, sheep, and goats, dividing the sheep into three classes. By their census (1839), the population of Prussia amounts to Males.. Total.... Number of families Number of dwelling-houses...... 8,162,805 8,168,382 .16,331,187 .3,180,707 .1,945,174 Number of churches, 16,897; schooldestitute persons, 5,710; civil, ecclesihouses, 23,384; asylums for orphans and astical, military, and hospital buildings, 35,353. POPULATION OF FRANCE. 6,076,252 11,973 9,579 given, together with the ratio of deaths to the number living; and some considerations were adduced, showing the most feasible mode of arriving at the law of mortality. The work of condens⚫ing this order of statistics has been continued with such discrimination as the nature and value of the returns seemed to require. A great diversity of opinions, it is well known, exists with respect to the salubrity of the Northern and the Southern, the maritime and the inland localities of our country; and on no point, perhaps, could reliable information be more reasonably desired. It is not here proposed to discuss the numerous inquiries which this important branch of statistics suggests, how far it shall confirm existing opinions, or awaken an interest and prepare the way for more full researches. The returns being the first of their kind in the national census, may seem to require some mode of verification; and in this view, the following investigations have been prepared. either continent. As has been truly observed, "a race of men, launched upon the tide of existence, have by virtue of all the conditions, a determined course to run, which will make its own way, and fulfil its own destiny in accordance with a system of laws as unalterable and supreme as those which control the physical universe." Without enumerating the conditions and circumstances of vital development, the practical conclusion arises, that the values of life for different branches of the Teutonic family of nations, in temperate climates, will not greatly differ. And if the ratios of annual mortality, and the expectations of life in America, should substantially agree with the like values in European tables, the general correspondence would afford so many credentials of statistical authority. With respect to the Northern United States, the returns of Massachusetts have been selected for comparison with those of the national census of England. In applying the same mode of verification to the Middle States, the statistics of Maryland have been taken, the table described in last year's report being revised, and male and female lines distinguished. The computations have been executed by Mr. L. W. Meech, whose familiarity with the subject, and scientific qualifications, afford The great mass of the white population of this country is chiefly of Teutonic origin, with a large admixture of Celtic. Located in temperate latitudes, with a climate not greatly differing from that of Europe, the presumption naturally arises that the same laws of life would prevail, and to nearly an equal degree, a sufficient guarantee of their accuracy. on both sides of the Atlantic. In the absence of any assignable and special source of change, the universal law of self-preservation and protection might be assumed to produce like results upon then be compared as follows: In contrast with these results, are set the expectations of life in France. The proportion of deaths and the expectations of life at its several periods, may |