Hundred. It so happens, nevertheless, that, with one principal exception in the parish of St. Just, all the parishes included under the head of mining, lie nearly contiguous, and in the eastern division of the Hundred, while, with two or three lesser exceptions, the reverse holds good respecting the agricultural parishes. Out of the twenty-four parishes of the Hundred, only nine have been included under the character of mining; but it has happened, by a curious coincidence, that the population of each of these divisions is precisely the same within one.[1] In the following inquiry it is also to be borne in mind that, of the fifteen parishes included under the name of agricultural, many contain a great proportion of miners, and also the most crowded and dirty towns and villages of the whole district, these latter having a population amounting to one-third of the whole number of inhabitants. These circumstances, of course, will render the results much less strong in support of the proposition of the unhealthiness of mining, than would have been the case had the parishes been truly and purely agricultural.
The following table exhibits the division of the parishes adopted, the total population, and the proportion of miners in each, in the year 1811:─
- ↑ In again referring to the parliamentary returns for 1821, I find that I have given the population of the parish of Ludgvan, and, consequently, of the agricultural district, 60 below the truth; but it will be admitted that this small error, in a total of 25,000, can lead to no practical error of any moment, in an inquiry like the present.─Chichester, Sep. 1833.
