THE NEED OF WATERFORD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 33, 3 June 1892, Page 5

THE NEED OF WATERFORD.

(Weekly Freeman.)

Watebpobd Bhares with the rest of Ireland the terrible depletion of population which has formed the burden of the story of last year's census. Within a period of forty-three or forty-four years the population of the County of Waterford has diminibhed by a hundred thousand. In 1841 the number of persons in the county and city was 196,187. Between 1841 and the famine year the number must have increased, for it was not until 1846 and 1847 that the tide of emigration, which we now know so well, began to fljw. Last year the census ascertained that, as against 196,187 ir 1841, 164,035 in 1851, 134,252 in 1861, 123 310 in 1871, 112,763 in 1881, the population now stands at 98,251. During the last ten years the number of emigrants from the county and city amounted to 19,428, while during the ten years 1871-81 the number was 12,732. It is a sufficiently unpleasant fact to find so heavy an increase in the number of emigrants, but when it is remembered that this depopulation affects the younger, more vigorous, and more ambitious of the inhabitants, the disastrous significance of the figures cannot well be exaggerated. There is one remedy, and one only, which can Btay this deadly decay. No reform of this or that law ia enough. We have hed reforms, and sweeping reforms, during the past tbirty years, and still the spectacle is witnessed of a population literally melting away. The remedy lies in a system of government understanded of the people, in which the National spirit ia dominant, and which, springing out of the brain and purpose of the nation, will provide an ample sphere oj action here at home for the genius and enthusiasm of the people. Waterford is oue of the moat Catholic counties in Ireland, the percentage of Catholics being as much as 94.6 of the entire population. Of course, here, too, there has been a considerable falling away in numbers. The Catholics number 14,145 less than they did in 1881, the Protestant Episcopalians 356 1e93, the Presbyterians 31 less, and the Methodists 6, One crumb of comfort is to be found in the cheerless compilation. The educational status of the people shows an advance Whereas in 1881 the number of inhabitants who could boch read and write was only 45.8, last year the percentage had risen to 67.9 ; and while the percentage of illiterates in 1881 was 43.6, last year it fell to 33 6. This is the solitary ray of light that shines through the Regis-trar-General's statistics. The whole is melancholy reading, and if the near future was not big with hope for Irishmen, we could not imagine a more depressing dose than the last census of Waterford,