IRELAND AS IT IS IN 1876.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 184, 6 October 1876, Page 14

IRELAND AS IT IS IN 1876.

Tub population of Ireland in the middle of the year 1876 is estimated by the Registrar-General at 5,317,416. The total of registered births over all Ireland on an average of five years, is 144,998 per annum, The highest birth-rate is in the County Kerry, where the annual per centage estimated from the number registered in this quarter is 45 for every 1000 of the population ; the lowest is in Meath, which is only 21 per 1000. Of registered marriages, the total number throughout Ireland in the year was 24,256. Of these, 16,688 were celebrated between the Roman Catholic population ; and 7,571 were between Protestants, which is at the rate of one marriage for every 162 of the Protestant population. As to deaths, the annual number in Ireland on an average of five years, is 94,751. The highest annual death rate is in the County Dublin, where it amounts to 31 out of a 1000. During the first quarter of 1876 no less than 9762 have emigrated from Ireland, of whom 5,047 were males and 5,695 females. This is 1,788 less than the number which left the country in the corresponding quarter of the preceding year. The tide of emigration, though not stopped, is, we infer, very considerably checked, mainly owing to the prevalence of bad times for the working population of the United States. As to the price of provisions, the Registrar-General's return records the Dublin prices. In the first quarter of 1864 the average price of oatmeal in the Dublin market was 11s per cwt.; in the first quarter of 1876 the average price was 16s 2dper cwt. Potatoes at the same time twelve years ago, sold from 5s 6d to 3s 3d per cwt.; they sold, ab the same time in the present year, from 3s 4d to 4s lid. Beef, which then sold psr cwt. from 51s 6d to 64s 6d, sells now from 56s 6d to 76s 6d. The 41b. loaf, which then sold at 6d, sells now for 7d. In speaking of the difference of the cost of living between the past and the present, facts so interesting and so accurate as these should be constantly kept in view. — ' Catholic Sentinel.'