previous quarter; and the mortality has been below the
average. Cholera has not prevailed to any extent, but
the mortality of the town districts has slightly exceeded
the average, and the diminution in the mortality is
found to be chiefly in the country districts.

33,144 Marriages were celebrated in the quarter
ending March 31, and in proportion to the population
this number exceeds the average of the ten corresponding
quarters, but it is less by 1,870 than the marriages
in the winter of 1853. The pressure of the high price
of provisions has had some effect in depressing the
marriages. On comparing the numbers in the corresponding
quarters of 1853 and 1854, the decrease is found to
be greatest in London, in Devonshire, in Shropshire, in
Lancashire, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and in
Westmoreland. In Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Durham,
and Northumberland, where the iron and coal
districts abound, the marriages exhibit no sensible
decrease.

172,420 Births were registered in the quarter ending
June 30, or 13.702 births in excess of the births in the
spring quarter of 1853. On an average the births were
at the annual rate of 3·45 per cent, on the population in
the ten spring quarters, 1844-53; in the spring quarter
of 1854 the rate was 3·72 per cent. The increase is
observable in every division of the country.

The number of children born last quarter was 172,420,
and in the same period 102,666 men, women, and
children died; therefore the registers show an Increase
in the Population of 69,754. But the increase or
decrease of a people is not dependent entirely on the
facts recorded in its registers: immigration and emigration
materially modify the result. The number of
emigrants who left English ports where emigration
officers are stationed, as furnished by the commissioners,
was 99,545. They are not distinguished in this return
as regards the parts of the United Kingdom from which
they came; but a large proportion were Irish, and
many Scotch, who came hither only for embarkation.
Of 116,861 persons who left the ports of the United
Kingdom, the United States was the place of destination
for 67,668; British North America for 26,600; the
Australian colonies for 21,998; and 595 set out for other
places. In the preceding three winter months the
number who left did not greatly exceed a third part of
the above number.

In regard to the State of the Public Health it appears
that the spring of 1854 was a season of more health to
the people of England than the spring of 1853. In the
quarter to which the present returns refer 102,666
deaths were registered—fewer by 5,195 than in the
same period of the previous year. In large town
populations, however, the public health was by no
means good during last quarter; the rate of mortality
was higher than the average, for 25 died out of every
thousand persons, whilst 24 represents the average
annual proportion. In the freer country regions and
small towns the spring months were propitious, the
average annual rate of mortality for the same season
being 22 out of a thousand, and the actual mortality
last quarter having been only 20 out of a thousand.

The Poor-law Board has appointed two inspectors,
Mr. Austin and Mr. Blane, with instructions to look
after the metropolitan districts during the Prevalence of
Cholera. The inspectors have called for reports of the
number of cases in the various parishes and unions, and
for copies of the dietary tables of the workhouses.
Nearly twenty convicts have died of Asiatic cholera in
Milbank prison. About 400 prisoners have been removed,
under an order from Lord Palmerston, and conveyed to
the barracks at Dorchester. In order to escape all chance
of infection from their clothes, each convict was supplied
with a new suit, the old one being destroyed.

The report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the
Condition of Birmingham Gaol, has been laid before
parliament. The following is the general judgment of
the commissioners. "With respect to Captain
Maconochie, we are fully satisfied that he is a gentleman of
humanity and benevolence, whose sole object in
undertaking the government of the prison was to promote the
reformation of the prisoners, and the well-being of
society, by means of the system of moral discipline
which he hoped to establish there. Nevertheless, as
we have seen, he was led in the pursuit of these objects
to sanction the infliction of punishments which were not
warranted by the law, and the employment of which
was the more to be regretted, inasmuch as such a course
is apt to lead to the use, in the hands of persons not
restrained by the same benevolent feelings, of practices
equally illegal and more objectionable from their greater
frequency and their greater severity. Again, we have
no reason to doubt that Lieut. Austin assumed the
government of the prison with the bonâ fide intention
and desire of doing his duty by carrying strictly into
operation the system of separate confinement combined
with hard labour, the efficacy of which system had
suffered, or was believed to have suffered, in the hands
of his predecessor. It is our duty also to state that
many communications from highly respectable persons,
some of whom had known him well for many years,
were laid before us, which testified in very favourable
terms to his character as an officer, a gentleman, and a
man of humanity; and further, that several instances
came under our notice in which he had interested
himself to obtain for boys who had been inmates of the
prison admission into the reformatory institution already
mentioned, established near the town of Birmingham.
Unhappily, however, he appears almost from the first to
have adopted the notion, that the principle of strict
separation, combined with hard labour, was to be
effectually maintained by no other means than by the
instant infliction of punishment for every infraction of
the discipline or failure in the labour, and we have
already seen that, not content with the administration
of punishments authorised by the law, nor with the
application of those of an unlawful kind which had
existed in the time of Captain Maconochie, he introduced
of his own authority another, not only utterly
illegal, but most objectionable from its painful, cruel,
and exasperating character, which he practised with a
frequency distressing to hear of, for offences often too
trivial to call for any severity of punishment at all, and
upon offenders quite unfit to be subjected to it. Many
of the severities actually practised were probably
unknown to him, but he must be held to a great extent
morally responsible for them all. And, upon the whole,
we are constrained to declare our conviction that his
conduct in his office, as disclosed in evidence before us,
was deserving of the most severe censure. He resigned his
office shortly before the commencement of our investigation.
Of Mr. Blount, the surgeon, much has been already
said; and generally we are compelled to speak of his
conduct in terms of strong condemnation. Not only
did he witness, apparently without remonstrance or
objection, the almost daily infliction of illegal and
excessive punishments, but he himself in more than one
instance suggested, and even assisted in, the commission
of illegal assaults upon prisoners. He was habitually
unobservant of the duties imposed upon him by law
and by the rules of the prison, careless of the complaints
of the prisoners who required his aid, and devoid of
sympathy with their sufferings. He also, we learn,
resigned his office almost immediately after the termina-
tion of our inquiry." The commissioners also state that
both Lieutenant Austin and Mr. Blount gave their
evidence in an evasive, disingenuous, and discreditable
manner. Of the chaplain, Mr. Sherwin, they speak in
very different terms. They found that he was attentive
and humane in the discharge of his sacred duties, that
he witnessed these occurrences with great pain, and
frequently remonstrated with the governor, and recorded
the complaints of the prisoners in his journal, which,
with his reports of his own duties, was laid before the
magistrates, but apparently were never read. He never
brought the matter formally before them, which he
accounted for by saying that his efforts to effect a change
were discouraged, and he believed that the system was
carried out under the cognisance of the magistrates;
but in this, it appears, he was mistaken. With respect
to the visiting magistrates, the commissioners give them
credit for every desire to do their duty properly, but
that, as a body, they had such confidence in the
governor that they suffered their duties to degenerate
into a mere form.

The same commissioners instituted an inquiry into
the state of matters at the Leicester County Gaol and