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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1866. Excerpt:... LANDLORDS AND LABOURERS. The recent census of Scotland is, in one of its leading features, a startling document. We have become so accustomed to read and to hear of progressive and continuous increase--increase of our manufactures, of our shipping, of our commerce, of our mines, of our productive power, of the amount of food drawn from our soil, of our wealth, of our strength, and of our numbers, that we discover with surprise that to this progress there is one great exception--that the general prosperity is not shared in by the agricultural districts, in so far as the number of the people is concerned. Coexistent with a vast increase in the rental of the land and in the value of its produce, coexistent with much agricultural prosperity, we find that the rural population has not contributed its share to the general increase of the kingdom, but has, on the contrary, diminished to an alarming extent. If.we look first at the aggregate results of the A census, we will at once see that Scotland has not increased in population, during the last ten years, at anything like the rates of the five previous decennial periods, these having on an average added 12.4 per cent to the population, while the last decade has only added 5.9. The total increase, when reckoned up, amounts to 172,509; of this number Glasgow enables Lanarkshire alone to claim no less than 101,390, leaving for all the rest of the kingdom only 71,119. The picture which Scotland thus presents as a whole, is reproduced by almost every county and every parish in the kingdom; but as the scale diminishes, so the colours deepen, till the rural district is generally found to be peopled by fewer inhabitants than formerly, and the increase, if any, confined to the town. In the returns of the Eegistrar-Genera...