ore it--using the
old materials for the purpose, and exactly following the original
design. (March, 1861.)

IV.

CORNISH PEOPLE.

It is my purpose, in this place, to communicate some few facts relating
to the social condition of the inhabitants of Cornwall, which were
kindly furnished to me by friends on the spot; adding to the statement
thus obtained, such anecdotes and illustrations of popular character as
I collected from my own observations in the capacity of a tourist on
foot.

If the reader desires to compare at a glance the condition of the
Cornish people with the condition of their brethren in other parts of
England, one small particle of practical information will enable him to
do so at once. In the Government Tables of Mortality for Cornwall there
are no returns of death from starvation.

Many causes combine to secure the poor of Cornwall from that last worst
consequence of poverty to which the poor in most of the other divisions
of England are more or less exposed. The number of inhabitants in the
county is stated by the last census at 341,269--the number of square
miles that they have to live on, being 1327.[2]--This will be found on
proper computation and comparison, to be considerably under the average
population of a square mile throughout the rest of England. Thus, the
supply of men for all purposes does not appear to be greater than the
demand in Cornwall. The remote situation of the county guarantees it
against any considerable influx of strangers to compete with the natives
for work on their own ground. We met a farmer there, who was so far from
being besieged in harvest time by claimants for labour on his land, that
he was obliged to go forth to seek them himself at a neighbouring town,
and was doubtful whether he should find men enough left him unemployed
at the mines and the fisheries, to gather in his crops in good time at
two shillings a day and as much "victuals and drink" as they cared to
have.

Another cause which has contributed, in some measure, to keep Cornwall
free from the burthen of a surplus population of working men must not be
overlooked. Emigration has been more largely resorted to in that county,
than perhaps in any other in England. Out of the population of the
Penzance Union alone, nearly five per cent. left their native land for
Australia, or New Zealand, in 1849. The potato-blight was, at that time,
assigned as the chief cause of the readiness to emigrate; for it