Chapter 24

[Footnote 229: Alison, "History of Europe," 2d series, c. xxxi., sec. 74.]

[Footnote 230: In the debate on the Registration Bill, in 1836, Lord John Russell stated that two hundred and twenty eight unions had already been formed in England and Wales, and that it might be calculated that when the whole country was divided into unions the entire number would amount to something more than eight hundred.]

[Footnote 231: See Lord Althorp's speech, of parts of which an abstract is given in the text.--_Parliamentary Debates_, xxii., April 17.]

[Footnote 232: Lord Althorp made the following frightful statement of the crimes committed in the province of Leinster alone in the last three months of 1832 and the first three of 1833: 207 murders, 271 cases of arson. The assaults attended with grievous personal injury were above 1000; burglaries and robberies, above 3000.]

[Footnote 233: It was often asserted that fourteen-fifteenths of the land in Ireland belonged to Protestants, but this estimate was, probably, an exaggeration.]

[Footnote 234: "Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel," ii., 3, 19.]

[Footnote 235: "Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel," pp. 31, 32.]

[Footnote 236: "One important question I found practically, and perhaps unavoidably, decided before my arrival, namely, the dissolution of the existing Parliament. Every one seemed to have taken it for granted that the Parliament must be dissolved, and preparations had accordingly been made almost universally for the coming contest."--_Peel's Memoirs_, ii., 43.]

[Footnote 237: "Middle Ages," ii., 31 _seq_. See also Stubbs, "Constitutional History," i., 82-92 _et seq._]

[Footnote 238: See Hallam's "Constitutional History," ii., 155.]

[Footnote 239: This was a matter of no small importance. The number of boroughs included in the bill was 183, having a population of about two millions. Their annual income was stated by Lord John Russell to be as nearly as possible £2000 a year for each, being £367,000; but their annual expenditure exceeded that amount by £10,000, being £377,000; "besides which there was a debt of £2,000,000 owing by these bodies."]

[Footnote 240: See Hallam, "Middle Ages," ii., 205-207.]

[Footnote 241: "Life of Pitt," ii., 131. Lord Stanhope imagines that the plan was relinquished in consequence of discouraging comments by the Archbishop (Dr. Moore).]

[Footnote 242: These objections were founded on the following calculations, or something similar to them. The tithe was the tenth of the produce. In letting estates it was estimated that a farm ought to produce three rents; in other words, that a farm let at £1 an acre ought to produce yearly £3 an acre. One-tenth of three pounds, or 6s., therefore, was what the clergyman was entitled to claim. Out of this, however, he had to defray the cost of collection, which might, perhaps, be one shilling, leaving him five shillings. But the average of compositions over the whole kingdom was under 2s. 9d., or eleven-twentieths of what he was entitled to; and if augmented by ten per cent., it would not exceed three shillings.]

[Footnote 243: The fund so created was expected to amount to £130,000 a year.]

[Footnote 244: As instances of the want of church-room in such towns, Lord John cited the dioceses of London, Chester, York, Lichfield, and Coventry, containing a population of 2,590,000 persons, with church accommodation for only 276,000, or one-ninth of the population; the Commissioners, from whose report he was quoting, reckoning that church-room ought to be provided for one-third.]