JOURNAL

OF THE

Dublin

ATISTICAL SOCIETY.

EIGHTH SESSION.

DUBLIN:

GES AND SMITH, 104, GRAFTON-STREET.

PREFACE.

DURING the first seven years of the existence of the Dublin Statistical Society, such of the papers read at its meetings as the Council judged deserving of publication were printed each in a separate form, and so circulated among the members and Corresponding Societies. This mode of publication, though possessing some advantages, has been found very unfavourable to the preservation of the papers; and the Council have therefore determined to publish for the future a series of selections from the Proceedings of the Society periodically in the form of a Journal, of which the present is the first number.

The Council wish it to be understood that, while they select the papers to be published in the Journal from a belief that the matter contained in them is worthy of attention, they do not vouch for the accuracy of the statistics or the soundness of the reasonings in any of those papers, for which their authors alone must be held responsible.