STATISTICS OF SURNAMES.
For many years a register has been kept throughout England and Wales of the names and ages of all who are born, marry or die. The following is a list of the fifty most common names, and the numbers belonging to each, for the year ending on the 1st day of July 1838.
Jones, 13,429; Smith, 12,627; Williams, 8,743; Taylor, 6,440; Davies, 5,589; Brown, 5,585; Thomas, 5,278; Evans, 4,930; Roberts, 4,199; Johnson, 3,743; Robinson, 3,555; Wilson, 3,399; Wright, 3,299; Hall, 3,227; Hughes, 3,180; Wood, 3,177; Walker, 3,148; Lewis, 3,134; Green, 3,112; Edwards, 3,097; White, 3,087; Jackson, 3,040; Turner, 2,908; Thompson, 2,874; Hill, 2,856; Harris, 2,771; Cooper, 2,693; Clark, 2,683; Davis, 2,661; Harrison, 2,502; Baker, 2,385; Ward, 2,318; Morris, 2,299; Morgan, 2,296; Martin, 2,272; James, 2,209; King, 2,156; Clarke, 2,145; Cook, 2,135; Allen, 2,116; Price, 2,090; Phillips, 1,997; Parker, 1,989; Moore, 1,985; Watson, 1,908; Carter, 1,882; Richardson, 1,817; Lee, 1,815; Griffiths, 1,801; Shaw, 1,754.
From this list it appears that the immortal family of the Smiths must "hide their diminished heads" before their more numerous rivals the Joneses. Two facts strike us, in looking over these statistics, the great numerical strength of Welsh names, and the entire absence of the Norman. The Norman conquest would seem to have had little influence on English blood, whatever it may have exerted on character and institutions; on the other hand, the Welsh names, such as Jones, Williams, Davies, Davis, Evans, Roberts, Hughes, Edwards, Morgan, Price, &c., form fully one-third of the whole number. The opinion of Hume, that the Anglo-Saxons exterminated the Britons from the territories they subdued, is denied by more recent historians; and considering the immense influx from Wales in subsequent times, it becomes a question in English Ethnology, whether the old Briton or the German, is now the larger element in the present population.
MORTALITY AT DIFFERENT AGES AND PERIODS OF THE YEAR.
The following statistics are taken from an elaborate work on Social Physics, by M. Quetelet, of Brussels. They exhibit the average per centage of deaths, during the various months of the year, from birth till extreme old age:
