parts of the kingdom; to compare town with country-agricul'tural districts with manufacturing and mining districts the hilly with the low and level-the maritime with the inland-the eastern and northern with the western and southern parts.' With a view to facilitate comparison, he has supplied a table wherein the abstracts of deaths are reduced to a common denomination, and the proportion of deaths at different ages out of '1,000 registered deaths, of which the ages were recorded, in each of twenty-five divisions, embracing the whole kingdom is 'exhibited to view.' We can make room only for the first five of these, in which a much higher rate of mortality is indicated than in most of the other divisions. [See page 496.] Upon the diversities exhibited in these tables Mr. Lister remarks. 6 From a few instances of extreme longevity no inference can be safely drawn; but the fact that of the deaths in any district a compatively large population is above the age of 70, is a strong presumption in favour of the health of that district. These proportions will be found to vary greatly. In the whole of England and Wales, out of 1,000 deaths, 145 have been at the age of 70 and upwards; while in the North Riding and northern part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and in Durham, except the mining districts, the proportion has been as high as 210. In Northumberland, (excluding the mining districts,) Cumberland, Westmoreland, and the north of Lancashire, the proportion has been 198; in Norfolk and Suffolk 196; in Devonshire 192; and in Cornwall 188. In contrast with this evidence of the large proportion of persons who attain to old age in these more thinly peopled portions of the kingdom, we find results extremely different where the population is densely congregated. In the metropolis and its suburbs the proportion who have died at 70 and upwards has been only 104; and even this proportion is favourable when compared with that of other large towns -the proportion in Birmingham being 81, in Leeds 79, and in Liverpool and Manchester only about 63. A comparison of the mining parts of Staffordshire and Shropshire, and of Northumberland and Durham, with the rural districts surrounding each, exhibiting great differences, especially in the proportion of deaths in old age, will justify the distinctions which I have made in placing them in separate tables. 'A very marked diversity also appears in the proportion of deaths. of infants in different parts of the country. In the mining parts of Staffordshire and Shropshire, in Leeds and its suburbs, and in Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and the lowland parts of Lincolnshire, the deaths of infants under one year have been more than 270 out of 1,000 deaths at all ages; while in the northern counties of England, in Wiltshire, Dorsetshire and Devonshire, in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire, and in Wales, the deaths at that age out of 1,000 at all ages scarcely exceeded 180.'-p. 15. 202.96 177.33 190.37 271.32 256.5 263.02 269.26 244.09 256.93 3 4 54.6 59.53 57.02 43.91 59. 41.56 10 to 9 14 Males. Fem. Total. Males. Fem. Total. Males. Fem. Total. Males. Fem. Total. Males Fem. Total. 270.43 216.70 244 71 69 39.52 45.1 42.26 306.27 247.53 277.94 20.24 33.11 35.25 34.13| 7.58 12.25 9.82 7.85 14.71 11.24 13.52 15.1 14.23 12.80 20.72 16.61 33. 34.28 35.17 30 21 32.78 18.39 26.14 22.13 33.17 40.82 36.85 2.29 5.52 3.76 1.6 6.75 4.43 5.01 7.05 6.01 2.73 2.15 1.73 3.53 2.67 7.57 8.13 7.84 1.62 3.48 2.52 7.56 8.16 7.85 2.32 3.14 3.02 It would, of course, be premature to found any calculation on such returns at present. A few years must be allowed for the collection of facts, and science may then determine their practical application to the purposes of life. It is enough that the right system has at length been originated. Let it have fair play and adequate time, and it will accomplish all we desire. In We must now advert to the subject of Marriage, on which we have a few things to say to our Dissenting readers, some of which may not be pleasing, though nevertheless just and salutary. It is proper for us to premise, that we hold marriage to be strictly and solely a civil engagement, and that we therefore approve in toto, so far as this point is concerned, of the Act of 1653, by which it was taken out of the hands of the clergy and committed to civil officers. Against the principle of this measure various 'objections have been urged; yet it is difficult to see,' remarks a late historian of Nonconformity, 'how any consistent Dissenter 'can sympathizeith, or adopt them. Marriage is clearly a civil. 'contract, pertaining to man as such, and not as the professory or 'advocate of any religious creed. It is equally valid, whatever 'be the views of the parties who form it; and as such, is enforced 'with impartial rigor on all classes of society. It is justly open to the profane as well as to the pious-a fact irrecon'cilable with the supposition of its religious character. severing, therefore, the civil contract from the religious services 'with which individuals might think proper to associate it; the 'parliament acted consistently with its own principles, and in harmony with the soundest policy. It was equally their duty as 'legislators to enforce the former, and to leave the latter to the ' voluntary arrangements of the parties concerned.* Concurring as we do most thoroughly in this reasoning, we rejoiced in the recent alteration of the law of marriage, as another step in the dissociation of things secular and spiritual,—a practical homage to the growing intelligence and piety of the age. It may suit the policy of an unscrupulous faction to misrepresent our views, but we are not to be deterred by such palpable unfairness from their enunciation. Every religious man in forming so important a relationship will instinctively recur to the divine footstool for guidance and a blessing. It needs no human law to bind him to this. He feels it to be incumbent and every way advantageous, and he will therefore do it. But this a totally different thing from investing what is merely secular with a religious character, and then constraining all classes of the community-the immoral and the profane equally with the religious, the avowed infidel as well as the humble believer-to make professions which their Price's History of Nonconformity, ii. 505. conduct belies, and from which their hearts-if any generous feeling be left them-recoil with disgust. Such is the system which our Established Church- the boasted bulwark of Protestant Christianity-has maintained for ages, and which it is still endeavoring to perpetuate in the land. Let the magistrate discharge the magistrate's duty, but let the house and altar of our God be saved from the desecration to which they have long been subjected. This is one of the vulnerable points of the endowed Church, and Dissenters would do well to make much of it. The glaring incongruity between the religious nature of the marriage service prescribed by the Church and the character of the great majority of those who from habit, and in thoughtlessness, perform it, is palpable to the dullest apprehension. But to revert to our more immediate object at present. By the recent Act of the legislature, the civil nature of the marriage contract is distinctly recognized, and provision is accordingly made for its performance without the intervention of compulsory religious rites. Due regard is at the same time paid to the prevalent feeling of the community, by allowing of the association of religious exercises with the marriage contract in all cases where they are desired. The old form is perpetuated for the use of the members of the Established Church, while Dissenters are at liberty to repair to their own places of worship, and to avail themselves of the services of their respective pastors. This is precisely as it should be, and the legislature is entitled to our grateful acknowledgment for the considerate wisdom which distinguishes the general features of the new system. We have no wish to compel others to adopt a mode which they disapprove; all we have ever asked for-and this we have now obtained-is to be relieved from the necessity of recognizing an authority which we repudiate, or of lending our temporary sanction to a Church which violates our convictions of religious duty. Let us now see how the new system has worked, and to what extent it has been brought into operation. The returns which Mr. Lister has given will enable us to do this with considerable accuracy. The number of Dissenting chapels in England and Wales registered under the new Act first claims our attention. In order to such registry it was prescribed that the following certificate should be signed by at least twenty householders, and be countersigned by one of the proprietors or trustees of the chapel in question; and that the same should be delivered to the superintendent-registrar of the district, to whom the sum of three pounds was to be paid. WE. the undersigned, being severally Householders, do hereby certify that a Building called is a separate Building, certified according to Law as a Place of Religious Worship, situate at in the County of in the Parish of and has been used by us during one year, at the least, as our usual Place of Public Religious Worship, and that we are desirous that such building should be registered for solemnizing Marriages therein. Witness our hands this day of 183 The registration commenced from the 31st January, 1837, though the solemnization of marriages was not legal till the first of the following July. The subjoined table will show the number of chapels registered up to December 31, 1838, in the several counties of England and Wales. Some The total number thus registered is 1,332, a small proportion it must be confessed of the 8,440 chapels, which, according to the calculations of our able contemporary the Congregational Magazine, are held by the Nonconforming sects of England and Wales. It must however be remembered, that nearly 3,000 of this number belong to the Wesleyan Methodists, a body which ridiculously repudiates the title of Dissenter, and apes with unseemly zeal, the manners of its favored rival. Still the proportion is small, and evidences a lamentable want of public spirit, and an ignorance of the legitimate bearings and wide scope of our principles. Various causes have operated in this case. have refused to avail themselves of the provisions of the Act, because it has not squared with their theoretic notions of perfection; others have been aggrieved-and we think with some justice -that a further tax of three pounds per chapel, should be imposed, on a people already burdened with the support of the state Church, in addition to the maintenance of their own forms. still it must be confessed-and we crave the attention of Dissenters to our statement-that these returns convict them of what their enemies lay to their charge,-a clinging to the old forms of the Establishment while they discard its spiritual authority. Let But |