Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/583

 NOTES AND HEMORANDA 561 and Wales. A table is given showing the number Of paupers in receipt of relief on January i in each year from 1858 to 1891, from which it appears that the proportion which the paupers relieved on January 1, 1891, bore to the estimated population was smaller than it had been on the same day on any preceding year, and that the number of paupers relieved on that day was, notwithstanding the growth of the population, smaller than the number relieved on the same day in twenty-nine out of the thirty-th. ree preceding years. Pauperism (England and Wales). Return (A). Comparative Statement of Pauperism. April 1891. 130 (A--111). THIS statement shows that the number of persons (excluding lunatics in asylums and licensed houses and vaants) relieved in England and Wales on the last day in each week of the month of April was as follows: First week, 669,755, second, 670,586, third, 669,838, fourth, 667,397, and fifth, 665,921. The number of paupers in receipt of relief in April 1891 was smaller than the number relieved in the corresponding month in any of the preceding years since 1857. Potato Crop, Failure of. 131. THIS is a report by the Local Government Board, Ireland, dated February 16, 1891, on the failure of the potato crop, and the condition of the poorer classes in the West of Ireland. It states that the districts in which the disease has appeared comprise about one-half of Ireland. On light dry soils with a limestone substratum, and on well- drained lands the potato crop was in some places excellent, and generally not very far short, but in cold, wet, inferior lands, and in mountain districts the failure everywhere was very serious. It would appear from the reports of the inspectors that it is in those parts of the West wher chronic poverty prevails, and where the potato is t, he staple food of the people that the failure was most complete. Owing to the unevenness of the crop in evmw district the inspectors felt some difficulty in estimating the extent of the loss, but their reports appear to point to the con- clusion that in the western unions the crop was from one-half to one-third of the average yield, while in some of the more congested districts the crop was hardly one-fourth of the usual return. Returns are annexed to the report showing (1)the number of persons in receipt of poor relief in the distressed unions at the close of each week from November 1, 1890, to February 7, 1891, (2) the proceedings under the Seed Potatoes Supply Act up to the date of thc report, and (3) information in detail concerning the unions which have been most affected by the failure of the potato crop. No. 3. VOL. I O O