ncrease in
1801 1821 1841 forty years.

Lancashire, 672,731 1,052,859 1,667,054 994,323
Yorkshire, W.R., 565,282 801,274 1,154,101 588,819
Staffordshire, 233,153 343,895 510,504 277,351
Nottingham, 140,350 186,873 249,910 109,560
Warwick, 208,190 274,322 401,715 193,155
Gloucester, 250,809 335,843 431,383 180,574

2,070,515 2,995,066 4,412,667 2,343,782

Lanark, 146,699 244,387 434,972 288,273
Renfrew, 78,056 112,175 155,072 77,016

224,755 356,562 590,044 365,289

--_Census of_ 1841. Preface, p. 8 and 9.]

Various causes have combined to produce demoralization among the vast
crowd, thus suddenly attracted, by the alluring prospect of high
wages and steady employment, from the rural to the manufacturing
districts. In the first place, they acquired wealth before they had
learned how to use it, and that is, perhaps, the most general cause
of the rapid degeneracy of mankind. High wages flowed in upon them
before they had acquired the artificial wants in the gratification of
which they could be innocently spent. Thence the general recourse to
the grosser and sensual enjoyments, which are powerful alike on the
savage and the sage. Men who, in the wilds of Ireland or the
mountains of Scotland, were making three or four shillings a-week, or
in Sussex ten, suddenly found themselves, as cotton-spinners,
iron-moulders, colliers, or mechanics, in possession of from twenty
to thirty shillings. Meanwhile, their habits and inclinations had
undergone scarce any alteration; they had no taste for comfort in
dress, lodging, or furniture; and as to laying by money, the thing,
of course, was not for a moment thought of. Thus, this vast addition
to their incomes was spent almost exclusively on eating and drinking.
The extent to which gross sensual enjoyment was thus spread among
these first settlers in the regions of commercial opulence, is
incredible. It is an ascertained fact, that above a million a-year is
annually spent in Glasgow on ardent spirits;[6] and it has recently
been asserted by a respectable and intelligent operative in
Manchester, that, in that city, 750,000 _more_ is annually spent on
beer and spirits, than on the purchase of provisions. Is it