FIGURES FROM IRELAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 357, 20 February 1880, Page 11

FIGURES FROM IRELAND.

Under the caption, " Ireland," the Detroit Free Press, one of the fairest and ablest as well as brighest papers in the country, publishes without comment a few statistics which will repay peiusal, especially at this time when the disturbed condition of the old country lends an air of truth to the malicious aspersions of her critics :—: — Here are some figures about Ireland. In 1845 there were 8,250,000 people on the island. In 1847, the year of the famine, the population was 8,025,274 ; in 1575 it was 5,309,494, and in '77 it was 5,338,906. Since 1851 there has been a decrease in farms under fifteen acres, and an increase of bolc'ings over fifteen acres. In '75 there were 51,459 patches of an acre, 69,098 of from one to five acres. In '41 there were 491,278 mud huts of one room each ; in '71 they had decreased two-thirds. There are fewer paupers in Ireland than in England, Scotland or in Wales. In England every thirty-three of the population contains one rjauper ; in Wales the same proportion holds good ; in Scotland there is one in every fifty-three, while in Ireland there is but one in every sixty -eight of the population. There is also much less crime in Ireland than in England in proportion to the population. In '76 four persons were sentenced to death in the former country, while thirty-two were sentenced in the latter ; for crimes of which the penalty was imprisonment for life the numbers were 50 and 2SO respectively. The proportion of minor offences ia much larger in England than in Ireland." No country in the world stands higher than Ireland on the score of chastity. Drunkenness, the curse of Northern Europe, has, as the above figures show, fewer victims proportionately in Ireland than in the sister island, though unfortunately in this respect both islands share the disgrace of that vice with all European countries of the same latitude. Hence Irishmen coming to America present too often the aspect of a social vice not confined to their native land, but more apparent from the fact that immigrants thence have so outnumbered those from other parts of Northern Europe. Americans travelling in Europe confirm the truth of Ireland's comparative freedom from this her chief vice ; but, as it happens, few American writers care to inform themselves of such facts before leaping at hasty generalisatione. Hence we are all the more pleased when we meet with justice and intelligence on such subjects. The justice deserves no thanks, but we honor the intelligence which prompts it. — Pilot.

It really seems that every •• Romish priest " who has soiled his clerical vesture, is yet clean enough to be an edifying Methodist. We 6ay it sadly and wonderingly, not harshly,