of the locomotive do not now show the slightest signs of injury from fire. The above information was derived from the engineer in charge of the locomotive, from whom we also learn that the locomotive has given great satisfaction to all upon the line of the road, who have examined it, and that it also effectually prevents the annoyance and danger of sparks. These are facts to be verified by the personal examination of those interested in the success of the experiment. If these representations are fully borne out after a sufficient test, the invention is a very important one to railroad companies. The furnaces and boilers of the Phleger locomotive are all built on an entirely new plan, from which the above improvements result. STEAMBOAT ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES AT CINCINNATI IN 1853-4. We give below a statement derived from the Cincinnati Price Current of the arrival and clearance of steamboats during the year ending August 31, 1854: COTTON RECEIVED AT VICKSBURG BY RAILROAD. We give below a statement of the quantity of cotton (in bales) delivered at Vicksburg, by the Vicksburg and Jackson railroad, for each of the last eight years, ending September 1st: 1847. 1818. 1849. September.. 1,602 2,315 5,658 October ... 5,996 7,261 10,881 November..... 8,456 7,117 9,238 5,369 December... January.. 4,995 10,673 7,012 3,329 10,710 1850. 1851. 1852. 1853. 1854. 1,143 2,079 4,711 8,224 2,316 4,895 11,811 12,665 20,316 10,610 12,896 10,957 22,273 17,801 17,215 14,704 20,706 9,832 14,082 13,915 John N. Robertson, of Columbus, South Carolina, proposes a time-table clock for engineers on locomotives, which is worthy of attention as a most useful improvement. He has sent a diagram of this "time-piece" to the editors of the Scientific American, with a folding dial, on the outside circle of which, on one side, is the time-table of the Charlotte and South Carolina Railroad, for the up, and on the other side a like timetable for the down trains. The distances between the stations are laid out on the outer circles, and the hands of the clock point to the hours and minutes, which are laid out on an inner circle. The clock is to be made perfectly tight and secured to the locomotive in front of the engineer. It may be regulated and locked by the local superintendents, which will prevent disasters arising from a difference of time in the different watches of the conductors or engineers. By such a clock the engineer will know at a glance the rate at which he should run his engine to arrive at the exact time at every station. STATISTICS OF POPULATION, &c. RESULTS OF THE CENSUS OF GREAT BRITAIN. NO. IV. FAMILIES AND HOUSES. The following table gives the number of inhabited houses and the number of families in Great Britain at each Census, from 1801 to 1851, inclusive; also the number of persons to a house, and the number of persons to a family :— INHABITED HOUSES AND FAMILIES IN GREAT BRITAIN AT EACH CENSUS FROM 1801 TO The above table does not include the Islands in the British Seas. It will be seen by the foregoing table that the number of inhabited houses in Great Britain have nearly doubled in the last half century, and that upwards of two millions of new families have been founded; the number of persons to a house have increased from 5.6 to 5.7; consequently the increase in the number of houses has not quite kept pace with the increase in the population. The increase in the number of persons to a family, in the same period, has been from 4.6 to 4.8. The number of families to a house varied considerably in different counties, and it is difficult to account for all the anomalies which are presented. In Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, few houses contained more than one family. Plymouth and the adjacent districts had more than two families, together averaging ten persons, to a house. In Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, and Staffordshire, a large proportion of the people lived in separate houses, with the exception of Bristol, Clifton, Gloucester, Hereford and Birmingham. In the counties of Leicester, Rutland, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, and Yorkshire, nearly all the families lived in separate houses, the city of York, and Hull being scarcely exceptional cases to the rule. In Lancashire and Cheshire, more than 300,000 out of 472,907 families lived in separate houses. Liverpool, Bolton, Manchester, and Salford, were the chief places where two or more families in many cases occupied the same house. In the northern division of England, comprising Cumberland, Northumberland, Durham, and Westmoreland, the proportional number of families and persons to a house increased. In Wales, the system of isolated dwellings generally prevailed, with some few exceptions. In Scotland, the plan of dividing the houses into flats was not confined to cities; consequently, the proportional number of families and of persons to a house greatly exceeded the average of England. In Glasgow, the number of families to a house was 5.4; of persons to a house, 27.5. In Edinburgh, the number of families to a house was 4.2, and of persons to a house, 20.6. In all Scotland, the number of persons to a house was 7.8, or about the same as in London. In England and Wales, the number of persons to a house was only 5.5. In order to throw some light," says the Report, "on the constituent parts of families, the returns of fourteen sub-districts in different parts of the kingdom were analyzed. Of 67,609 families, 41,916 heads of families were husbands and wives, 10,854 widowers or widows, and 14,399 bachelors or spinsters; in 440 cases the head of the family was absent from home; 36,719 heads of families, or more than half, had children living with them; 7,375, or nearly a tenth, had servants; 4,070, or a seventeenth, had visitors with them; 8,543 had relatives with them; and 1,020 had apprentices or assistants in their respective trades. Of the 67,609 families, only 3,508, or 5.2 per cent, consisted of husband, wife, children and servants, generally considered the requisites of domestic felicity; whilst 4,874 consisted of man, wife, and servants. The heads in 24,180 instances had neither children, relatives, visitors, nor servants; like some corporations, they might be characterized as 'sole,' man and wife being considered one. 14,399 families, or occupiers, were either bachelors or spinsters." A number of other combinations are given, far too numerous to mention. The number of children at home in families varied considerably. Of the 41,916 families having man and wife at their head, 11,947 had no children at home; 8,570 bad each one child at home; 7,376 had each two children at home; 5,611 had each three children at home; 4,027 had each four children at home; and so forth in a decreasing scale, until we come to 14 familles having each ten children at home; 5 having each eleven children at home; and 1 having twelve children at home. These results applied to Great Britain generally would indicate that 893 families had each ten children at home, 317 had each eleven, and 64 had each twelve children at home; nevertheless, the average number of children at home in families did not exceed two; thus showing, that however violent may be the fluctuations in a small number of observed facts, the average is not disturbed if the area of observation is sufficiently extended. A certain portion of the people, for various reasons, are lodged in detached large buildings, such as barracks, prisons, workhouses, lunatic asylums, hospitals, asylums, and the like; in these the family organization is broken up, and the inmates are under the rule of certain governing bodies. The annexed table gives the number and class of such public institutions in Great Britain, in 1851, and the number of persons inhabiting them :— PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN IN 1851. Of the 295,856 persons in the aggregate occupying these 2,017 institutions, 260,340 were inmates, and 35,516 officers and servants; consequently, there were about seven inmates to one officer or servant. The excess of males over females in these institutions, about 60,000 is chiefly exhibited in the barracks and in the prisons; in the latter, from the fact that crime is four times as prevalent among men as among women. The equality of the sexes in workhouses is remarkable. In the lunatic asylums there is a preponderance of females, The population sleeping in barns, in tents, and in the open air, is comprised chiefly of gipsies, beggars, criminals, and the like, together with some honest but unfortunate people out of employment, or only temporarily employed. The number of these houseless classes in 1851 was 18,249; in 1841 they amounted to 22,303. It is mentioned as a curious trait of gipsy feeling, that a whole tribe struck their tents, and passed into another parish, in order to escape enumeration. The subjoined table gives the number of persons enumerated in barns, tents, and barges, and in vessels in ports, either engaged in inland navigation or sea-going vessels, on the night of the census of 1851 : PERSONS IN BARNS, TENTS, BARGES, AND VESSELS, IN GREAT BRITAIN, ON THE NIGHT OF THE PAUPER POPULATION OF MASSACHUSETTS IN 1853. We have received from the Massachusetts Department of State," Returns relating to the poor in Massachusetts, for the year ending November 1, 1853," prepared by E. M. WRIGHT, Secretary of the Commonwealth. It is a document of twenty-one octavo pages, comprising tabular statements of the statistics of each town and county. From this report we compile the subjoined tables, giving the aggregate statistics of the poor of the State of Massachusetts: Number of persons relieved or supported as paupers during the year Number of the preceding having a legal settlement in the county or elsewhere in this Commonwealth 26,414 8,004 Number of State paupers 14,831 Number of State paupers who are foreigners.. 11,874 Number of foreigners from England and Ireland.. 10,014 Almshouses.. 197 Number of acres of land attached to almshouses.. Estimated value of almshouse establishments Number of persons relieved in almshouse during the year Average weekly cost of supporting each pauper in almshouse. 20,036 $1,307,124 12,241 3,391 $1 10.9 6,365 Average weekly cost of supporting paupers out of almshouse.. Paupers by reason of insanity or idiocy.. or others Net amount of expense of supporting and relieving paupers, including interest on almshouse establishments... Proportion of paupers probably made so by intemperance in themselves Number of foreign paupers who have come into the Commonweath within one year... $19,679 14,398 $0.92 722 371 972 16,034 1,135、 $465,599 We give below an abstract of the returns of indigent children under fourteen years of age, supported at the public charge, in Massachusetts, for the year 1853: Of State paupers it will be seen that 11,874 out of 14,831 are foreigners, mostly from England and Ireland. Twenty-three towns made no returns. FIGURES ABOUT THE WOMEN OF GREAT BRITAIN. According to the British Census Reports of England for 1851, there are 359,969 old maids above 40 years of age in Great Britain. There are 1,407,225 spinsters between 20 and 40, and 1,413,912 bachelors of the same age. In the list of the occupations of women there are 88 authoresses, 18 editors or public writers, 643 actresses, 135 danseuses, 16 equestrians. Of the female domestics no less than 675,311 are entered under the denomination of "general servants." Of the higher class of servants the housemaids are more numerous than the cooks, the former being 55,935, and the latter only 48,806, and there are above 50,000 "housekeepers," and nearly 40,000 nurses. The charwomen are no less than 55,423 in number. STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE, &c. COST OF PRODUCING SUGAR IN LOUISIANA. A sugar planter of Louisiana, under date from Orleans May 9th, 1854, writing to the Baltimore American gives his own experience as a sugar planter, as to the cost of producing sugar. He ventures the assurance that “very few realize eight per cent per annum," and in his opinion many planters are making "more leeway than headway." We give his statement for the last season, on a plantation with one hundred slaves, which cost him $160,000: 500 hhds. of sugar, fair quality, sold at 34 cents per lb.. 25,000 gallons of molasses at 14 cents per gallon.... Merchants' commissions on sale of the crop, 23 per cent.... $16,250 00 3,500 00 $19,750 00 $443 75 750 00 525 00 1,200 00 Sugar maker 300 00 Engineer to superintend my own engineers. 120 barrels of mess pork at $14 per barrel 700 molasses barrels, at $1 50 each.... 250 00 1,680 00 1,050 00 Being less than six per cent interest on the investment. In these expenses I do not include my family or house expenses, nor do I take into consideration the loss of some valuable hands-placing the births against the deaths. You perceive that I am not one of those making four to five hundred dollars clear profit to the hand, and judging from the indebtedness of many sugar planters, I should apprehend it would be no easy matter to put your finger on many of that class. It is all well enough to talk about the molasses paying the expense of the plantation, but it is all gammon, if you feed and clothe your negroes, and treat them as they deserve, and are treated, I am happy to say, in most cases. Take the duty off sugar, and you bankrupt-nay utterly ruin-four-fifths of the sugar-planters of this State. Sugar is now cheaper than flour. A barrel of the best |