"Yes, moother; boot ye moost bide still." "A ha' been dreamin'," continued the old lady, in a weak voice; "it moost ha' been a dream. Is't mornin' ?" Jack replied that it was still day, but that the evening was coming on apace. "It wa' a strange "A thooght A haad been took ill," she said. dream, mi soon. A caan see 't noo. Sa strange! boot wild an' wand'rin' like; Miss Mary's face, boot On hearing this, Jack Crossman turned quickly to prised her not a little by his eager inquiry of what she had done with the beggar-woman. "A sent foor one o' t' men to turn her oot o' t' plaace. We caan ha naa tramps here." "An' he did sa?" "A dinna ken, for A naa went to sai." On hearing this, Jack muttered something which was unintelligible to his wife, and his action was still more perplexing, for he left his sick mother's side and went out, as if he had something very important to do which could not be postponed for a moment. "Weel, A'se soore!" ejaculated Betsy. "Whaat caan 't be arl aboot." But her mother required all her attention, and she had no time for conjecture, as the doctor arrived, and the story had to be repeated again with additions. She had to listen to his injunctions, to help in the preparation of a cordial, and to see that the kettle did not boil over. The doctor said that she need not be under any apprehension for the old lady; a fainting-fit at her time of life naturally caused great uneasiness; but she had undergone some excitement, and rest was what she most needed. Jack did not come back as soon as his wife expected; and when she had seen the doctor mount his horse and ride away, she began to be both rather curious and rather uneasy about him. Where could he have gone? It must be some very important business that kept him away from his mother's sick-bed. Betsy asked a boy if he had seen her husband; and from him she learned that Jack had taken the beggar-woman in his own gig down the hill, and along the road towards the rectory. He had had some trouble to get her in, and she had laughed and talked like a mad woman. This piece of news puzzled Betsy more than ever. What could her husband be doing with the tramp? She had a good mind to scold the farming-man for not sending her off the place when he was told to do so. Betsy loved to give any one a good scolding, but she had no opportu nity this time, as the man was fortunately not in the way. So she was obliged to content herself with saying something sharp to the boy for doing nothing, and then she went back to the kitchen. Betsy!" said a faint voice-"Betsy!" And she hastened to the bedside. "A'm very weak, an' A ha' seen strange things sooch as people see afore they die. If it shoold cum to thaat, ye'll ha' me buried in t' grave wi' ma gude maan." "Ward ye ha' it distoorben, moother ?" "Yees, it ma' seem strange, boot ye see a ward like to lie side by side wi' him; natur clings to natur." Having arranged this matter, the old lady fell into a doze. POPULATION AND TRADE IN FRANCE. BY FREDERICK MARSHALL. No. II.-LAND. THE official survey of the surface of France was commenced in 1808 and finished in 1842. It shows a total area of 129,195,187 acres, divided into 158,184,542 fields or pieces. Each separate property, no matter how many pieces it includes, nor of what size or nature it be, cultivated or uncultivated, and whether built on or not, is marked on the map by a taxing number, called the cote foncière, and this number, or cote foncière, constitutes the topographical and fiscal denomination of the property to which it applies. The total of these cotes foncières in 1842, according to the survey then completed, was 11,511,841. But these figures refer, in fact, to the whole thirty-four years, between 1808 and 1842, and do not apply to any particular year; for the numbers given for the departments which were surveyed first date necessarily from 1808, while those which relate to the last districts executed belong to 1840 or 1841. This difference of date in the calculation of the various elements of the survey destroys its value as applicable to any one year; and though the statistics of France quote the number of 11,511,841 cotes foncières, as officially belonging to the year 1842, and though that date must therefore be accepted as the legal point of departure of those statistics, it is obvious that the figures in question cannot be depended on really indicating the exact number of separate properties into which France was then divided. This difficulty is important, for if the annual augmentation of cotes foncières is to be admitted to constitute an absolute indication of the progress of the division of the soil, which is the great problem attached to the land question in France, it is clearly essential to have a determined point to start from. And this is the more interesting in consideration of the attacks directed against the law of equal inheritance, not only in countries where a different legislation exists, but also by a small party in France itself. If, by the action of this law, the number of cotes foncières is increasing rapidly, then it would follow that in a period which, although long, might be approximatively calculated, the surface of France would become divided into lots so infinitesimally small that, as is urged by the adversaries of the law, agriculture might become unproductive from having no space to work on, and the taxes on real property, which at present constitute about one-sixth of the whole revenue of the country, might cease to be practically recoverable. It is easy to understand why the few remaining representatives of the system destroyed in 1789 should endeavour, by gloomy forebodings, to obtain the reconstitution of entails as a first step to the re-establishment of aristocratic conditions of society; but neither their facts nor their arguments appear to be well founded. The present state of division of the soil of France is not a consequence of the law of equal inheritance. It existed to a great extent long before VOL. XLIX. 2 L that law was enacted. It is known, and the authority of Arthur Young confirms the fact, that years before the Revolution, while the old régime was still in force, one-third of the surface was already owned by small proprietors. Then came the confiscation and sale, in the last years of the eighteenth century, of the properties of the émigrés and the clergy, the great mass of which were bought by the rural population and converted into small holdings. It was not till after the land had thus been already cut up that the obligatory division of inheritance came into force; so that even if it could be proved that the development of small holdings is dangerous to the prosperity of the country, this development cannot yet be attributed to any material extent to the compulsory division of inheritance. It is asserted by the opponents of the present law that the subdivision of the land has largely progressed since the commencement of this century, and, consequently, after the causes just indicated had produced all their effect; that there were only 10,083,751 cotes foncières in France in 1815, and 13,122,758 in 1854, and that the multiplication of properties in those forty years, which was 30 per cent., or at the rate of per cent. per annum, was, at all events, due to divisions of inheritance. On this they argue that the whole present number of properties will be doubled in one hundred and thirty-four years. But the starting-point of this calculation is incorrect. The 10,083,751 cotes foncières given for 1815 were certainly published by the government of the period, and may therefore be supposed to be officially given; but they resulted not from any known facts, but from a simple estimate based on the results of the small part of the survey then executed; the quantities found in a few departments were summarily applied to the proportionate surfaces of all the remaining departments, and so the above total was obtained. The proof of the inexactness of this way of counting is furnished by the official statistics themselves. In order to arrive at another anticipatory total, by the same system of induction, calculations were made and published in 1826, when the survey was about half finished, showing that the general sum of cotes foncières in all France was 10,296,693, while, by another computation made in 1835, they were again estimated at 10,893,528. But as the very author of these calculations, M. Moreau de Jonnès, has since most justly observed, they upset each other; for whereas the increase they show for the eleven years, between 1815 and 1826, is 212,942, it amounts to 596,835 for the nine years between 1826 and 1835-a variation of the rate of progress which is manifestly inadmissible. These guess-work calculations show the danger of trying to compute the whole from one of the parts; the process may be possible in comparative anatomy, but it is most unsafe in matters of account. For these reasons all the figures put forward as antecedent to 1842 must be regarded as imaginary; it is not, therefore, necessary to examine the arguments which are based on them. And even the figures of 1842 have a somewhat limited value, not only from the long period over which their collection extended, but from the great probability that many numbers were accidentally omitted in the laborious and intricate operations of the first survey. This probability is supported by the fact, that while the total number of cotes foncières amounted to 11,511,841 in 1842, it had risen to 12,549,954 in 1851; that is to say, the apparent increase in these nine years was 1,461,203, or nearly 1 per cent. per annum, a rate of progress not only out of all proportion with that of the other periods calculated, but which is especially improbable in the face of the comparatively sluggish state of France, and of the absence of all speculative activity during the time. It certainly cannot be proved that the survey which finished in 1842 was incomplete, but there is strong presumptive evidence that it was so, and to a very great degree. It is prudent, therefore, to put aside all these doubtful numbers, and to take the more recent quantities officially given in the fourteenth volume of the General Statistics of France, after the original survey had been well checked in every department, though there again a new difficulty arises.. As has just been remarked, the cotes foncières for 1851 amounted to 12,549,954, while in 1854 they had risen to 13,122,758. The augmentation in those four years was, therefore, 572,804, which is equal to about 1 per cent. per annum. Now this proportion is absolutely higher than that of per cent., already indicated as inexact, because it results from a comparison of the guess-work figures of 1815; if, therefore, it were not susceptible of explanation, it would furnish a stronger and more undeniable proof than any yet advanced that the law of compulsory division is rapidly multiplying the number of lots. But this exceptional progress resulted from two great and special momentary causes totally independent of the normal conditions of the land market. In the years between 1852 and 1854, after confidence was re-established by the foundation of the Empire, and before it was again disturbed by the Crimean war, France was in a most feverish state of industrial and speculative activity. Joint-stock companies of every kind came before the public with subscriptions of shares, half the population devoted itself to Bourse speculations, and the national character seemed to suddenly changeabandoning the old habits of hoarding and solid investments for the sake of the profits which suddenly tempted it in a new direction. These influences acted most powerfully on the middle classes, and in order to satisfy their new dispositions they sold in every direction the landed property which they had still retained in order to invest in shares the capital which it represented. This peculiar and momentary condition of the money market produced more voluntary sales of land in those years than had occurred in the whole of the first half of the century. The land thus brought into the market was eagerly bought by the rural population, who found in these special circumstances a rare opportunity of satisfying their longing after land; but as, from want of means, they could only buy in small pieces, the number of lots, and consequently the number of cotes foncières, increased in proportion to the number of buyers. This is the first explanation of the increase of cotes foncières from 1851 to 1854. The second cause arose from exactly similar sources. During these same three years building went on in France with astonishing rapidity. In Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, and many other great towns, whole districts were covered with new houses, and as every new building lot bears a new number and represents a new cote foncière, a very large augmentation was produced in this way. These circumstances have not yet been brought forward by the French writers on the subject, but all France knows that they existed, and the only doubtful point about them is the determination of the exact amount of influence which they exercised. The increase of 1 per cent. per annum in the quantity of cotes foncières between 1851 and 1854 was, therefore, momentary and exceptional, and cannot be attributed to the effects of the division of inheritance. As the published statistics bearing on the subject only come down to 1854, the movement since that date cannot be determined. The question rests, therefore, for the moment, between the difficulty of inexact figures previously to 1851 and the difficulty of a sudden augmentation produced by special causes from 1851 to 1854. Of course the division of the soil of France is progressing, and the rate of increase in the number of lots has risen, under the accidental circumstances just mentioned, as high as 1 per cent. per annum, but it cannot be admitted that the normal augmentation approaches that quantity. The average annual progress in ordinary years is probably not superior to per cent. This, however, is but an estimate, and its reality cannot be determined till the experience of several more years has indicated the regular rate of the movement; but it seems, under all the circumstances, to be a reasonably probable figure. Admitting, therefore, that the subdivision of the surface is at present regularly advancing at this latter rate from the effects of the law of equal inheritance, it does not follow that any evil consequences will necessarily ensue from the multiplication and consequent diminution in size of the properties into which it will divide the land. It must first be shown that the multiplication will really continue at its present rate up to a point where danger would arise. The first step in the examination of this part of the question is to fix the present proportions of the division of the soil among its owners. But no one knows how many landed proprietors there are in France. They have never been counted. Several estimates of their number have been made, more or less discordant with each other, but there is no positive and recognised result. The only information on the subject which presents itself with an official character is a calculation made during the first Empire by the Duke de Gaète, who was then minister of finance; he estimated that the average division of property was at the rate of two cotes foncières to each proprietor. As this proportion has recently been confirmed by M. Moreau de Jonnès, director of the Statistical Department at the Ministry of the Interior, who considers that it continues to apply at the present time, it may be received with as much confidence as can be attached to a result which, after all, is only a presumption. Taking, therefore, two cotes foncières to each proprietor, the 13,122,758 cotes of 1854 would give 6,561,379 proprietors-more than one-sixth of the whole population, which is 36 millions. Now, if the division of the soil continues to progress at the supposed rate of per cent. per annum, this number of proprietors would evidently be doubled in two hundred years, and would rise to 13,122,758 in that period. But as the present rate of increase of the population is not per cent. per annum, the whole total would only rise from 36 to 48 millions in the same two hundred years, even admitting that this advance takes |