A Statistical Account of the British Empire, exhibiting its Extent, Physical Capacities, Population, Industry, and Civil and Religious Institutions. By J. R. M'Culloch, Esq., assisted by numerous contributors. Second Edition, Enlarged. London: Printed for Charles Knight & Co. 1839 [pp. 416-450]

41S Af'Culloc/t's Brdis~ Bmpire. [JULY
after a due acquaintance with the best authorities. And
this was no small labour, for almost every locality of these
countries has its special historian, geographer, or illustrator,
who has minutely set forth its claims upon public attention.
These writers, old as well as recent, have been made to contribute largely to the interest of these pages.
After haviiig thus examined the ground, the Second Part
exhibits the numbers and distribution of the population. A
slight allusion being made to the origin of the present races
in the British isles, our author seems impelled, at once, to
notice an event which threatens, in his estimation, a'serious
injury to the pure Saxon blood which flows iii English veins.
We allude," says he, " to the late extraordinary immigration
of Irish, or Celtic labourers into Great Britain. Considering
the general want of employment, and low rate of wages in
Ireland, the temptation to emigrate to England is all but
irresistible; and steam communication has reduced the expenses of transit to almost nothing; having established, as it
were, floating bridges between Dublin and Liverpool, Belfast and Glasgow, Waterford and Bristol; so great has been
this immigration that at present, it is believed, about a fourth
part of the population of Manchester and Glasgow, consists,
either of native Irish, or their descendants; and in various
other places the proportion of Irish blood is still greater, an(t
threatens to entail very pernicious consequences on the people of England and ~cotland. The wages of the latter are
reduced by the competition of the Irish; and which is stilf
worse, their opinions as to what is necessary fbr their com
fortable and decent subsistence, are lowered by the contaminating influence of example, and by familiar intercourse
with those who are content to live in filth and misery.
Hitherto the Irish have been very little, if at all, improved
by their residence in England; but the English and ~cotch,
with whom they associated, have been certainly deteriorated.
It were better that measures should be adopted to check, if
that be possible, the spread of pauperism in Ireland; but if
this cannot be done, it seems indispensable that we should
endeavour to guard against being overrun by a pauper
horde." What emotions must this earnest complaint excite
in the minds of those who are acquainted with the condition
of the English poor! What must be the condition of those
Irish poor of whose inroads such apprehensions are entertain
ed? What must be their moral condition whose association
could injure English paupers? And what sort of being~