CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF TREATIES. (Continued from vol. vii. p. 581.) 1815 March 23 Treaty of Vienna between Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, confirming the principles of the treaty of Chaumont, March 1, 1814, on which they had acted; and uniting Belgium to the Netherlands under the sovereignty of the king of the Netherlands. 1815 June 8: Federative Constitution of Germany signed at Vienna. : 1815 July 3 Convention of St. Cloud between Marshal Davoust on the one part, and Wellington and Blücher on the other, by which Paris was surrendered to the Allies, who entered it on the 6th. 1815 August 2: A Convention signed at Paris between Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, styling Napoleon the prisoner of those powers, and confiding his safeguard particularly to the British government. 1815 September 14: A Convention entered into at Vienna, whereby the duchies of Parma, &c., were secured to the Empress Maria Louisa, and on her demise to her son by Napoleon. 1815 September 26: The Treaty denominated of the Holy Alliance, ratified at Paris by the Emperors of Austria and Russia and the King of Prussia. 1815 November 5: A Treaty ratified at Paris between Great Britain and Russia respecting the Ionian Islands, which were declared to form a united state under the sole protection of the former power. 1815 November 20: Peace of Paris between France on the one part, and Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, on the other, establishing the boundaries of France, and stipulating for the garrisoning of several of the fortresses in France by foreign troops for three years. 1818 October 9: A Convention entered into by the great powers of Europe, assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle, on the one part, and the Duke de Richelieu on the other, whereby it was stipulated that the army of occupation should quit the French territory on the 30th of November ensuing; it was also agreed that the remaining sum due from France to the Allies was 265,000,000 francs. 1819 August 1: Congress of Carlsbad. 1820 October 20: Congress of Troppau. 1820 October 24: Treaty between Spain and America: Florida ceded to the United States. 1821 May 6: The Congress of Laybach, which had been for some time attended by the sovereigns of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, finally broke up, having issued two circulars stating it to be their resolution to occupy Naples with Austrian troops, and proscribe popular insurrection. 1822 August 25 Congress of Verona. 1824 February 4: A Convention between Great Britain and Austria laid upon the table of the House of Commons, by which the former agreed to accept 2,500,000l. as a final compensation for her claims upon the latter power, amounting to 30,000,000l. 1825 February 28: Convention between Great Britain and Russia; frontier of north-west coast of America settled. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF TREATIES. 383 1825 April 17: France recognizes the independence of St. Domingo. 1825 April 18: Treaty of Amity between Great Britain and Columbia. 1825 October 18: Treaty between Great Britain and Brazil for Abolition of Slave Trade. 1829 July 6 Treaty of London between Russia, France, and Great Britain, for the settlement of the affairs of Greece. 1829 September 14: Peace of Adrianople, between Russia and Turkey, by which Russia acquires the protectorate of Moldavia and Wallachia. 1830 May 7: Treaty between Turkey and the United States. American vessels allowed to pass to and from the Black Sea. 1830 November 2: The independence of Belgium recognized by England and France. 1831 The Commercial Union of the northern states of Germany, known as the Zollverein, commenced under the auspices of Prussia. 1831 November 15: A Treaty signed between Great Britain and France, for a settlement of the points of dispute between Holland and Belgium, to which Holland acceded March 13, 1838. 1833 July 8: Treaty at Constantinople between Turkey and Russia, by which it was stipulated that the Dardanelles should be shut to all foreign vessels of war. 1834 April 22: Quadruple Treaty between Great Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal, in support of the two queens, Isabella and Maria. 1835 Supplementary Treaties with Portugal and Spain, by the former of which the Methuen Treaty with Portugal was annulled. 1840 July 15: Treaty signed in London between Great Britain, France, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Turkey, for the settlement of the dispute between Turkey and Mehemet Ali. 1841 July 13 Convention at London between the European Powers and Turkey, by which the closing of the Dardanelles against ships of war is made general to them all while Turkey is at peace. 1842 August 29: Treaty of Nankin with China, by which several ports were opened to the British trade, Hong-Kong ceded, and an indemnification of 21,000,000 dollars paid. 1845 May 29: A Convention signed in London between Great Britain and France for the suppression of the Slave Trade. 1846 November 16: Austria, Russia, and Prussia revoke the treaty of 1815, constituting Cracow a free republic, and restore the territory to Austria. Soon after, the kingdom of Poland is incorporated with Russia. Great Britain, France, Sweden, and Turkey unite in a protest against these proceedings. 1849 August 6: Treaty of Milan, between Austria and Sardinia. 1850 February 27: Treaty at Munich between Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, and Würtemberg, to form a Southern German Union against the pretensions of Prussia. 1850 April 19 Treaty at Washington between Great Britain and the United States, respecting a ship-canal through the state of Nicaragua, to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. 1850 July 2: Treaty of Peace between Prussia and Denmark, Prussia withdrawing from the support of the duchies of Holstein and Schleswig; and on July 4 a protocol was signed in London between Great Britain, France, Prussia, and Sweden, guaranteeing the integrity of the Danish territories. CHAPTER XXII. Social condition of Great Britain at the period of the Accession of Queen Victoria-Occupations of the People-Growth of Cities and Towns-London-Increase of Houses-Supply of Food-Improved means of Communication affecting that supply-Cheapening of the necessaries of life-Conveyance of Mails by Railways-Limited Postal accommodation-Public Health-Inquiry into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Classes-Exposure of the unfitness of many Dwellings for healthful occupation-Work rooms without ventilation, such as those of Tailors and Milliners-Public arrangements influencing the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population-Neglect and ignorance universal-Want of Drainage -Inadequate Water supply for the preservation of cleanliness-Public Baths and Washhouses unknown-Interments within the precincts of large Towns-Public Walks not provided-State of the Factories-Number of Workers in Textile Manufactures-Beginnings of improvement-Mining Population-Employment of Children and Women in Mines Agricultural Labourers-Operation of the New Poor Law-Neglect of the Labourers by the richer Classes-Miserable Cottage accommodation-Dorsetshire Labourers -Field employment of Women and Children-Crime in England and Wales-Juvenile Delinquency-General state of Education-First aid of the State to voluntary exertionsIncrease of Schools and Scholars--Limited ability to read and write amongst the adult population-General aspects of English Society. In the celebrated description by Macaulay of "the state in which England was at the time when the Crown passed from Charles the Second to his brother," he rests its necessary imperfection upon the "scanty and dispersed materials" from which it was composed. In now attempting a description of the state in which the United Kingdom was at the time, or about the time, when the Crown passed from William the Fourth to his niece, we have not the same apology for its incompleteness. The materials from which it must. be composed are embarrassing, not from their scantiness but from their fulness, not from their dispersion in scarce and curious tracts, in private letters and diaries, in the observations of foreigners, in estimates of national wealth resting upon no solid bases, in county histories, in meagre newspapers, in old almanacs. In 1837 we were passing out of the transition state of very imperfect statistics to the period when every aspect of our social condition was to be delineated; when every dark corner was to be explored; when every fact connected with Education, Public Health, Crime and Punishment, Industrial Employment, Pauperism, was to be recorded and tabulated; the period of Commissioners and Boards-the period when, according to Sydney Smith, "the whole earth was, in fact, in Commission." Out of several hundred Official Reports we may to some extent learn what we were a quarter of a century ago, and be enabled to answer the question, "Are we improved ?" VOL. VIII. CO 386 OCCUPATIONS OF THE PEOPLE. [1837. In commencing our survey of what Shakspere, in his famous comparison of "the state of man in divers functions" with the working of " the honeybees," calls "a peopled kingdom," we beg to repeat what we said at the outset of this History, that we do not apply the term "People" to any distinct class or section of the population. We especially protest against the abuse of the term "People" which some amongst us have adopted from the modern literature of France, when they assume that the non-capitalist portion of the industrious classes are exclusively "the People." The intelligent public officers to whom has been committed the superintendence of the Census during the last twenty years have classified the "Occupations of the People" as the occupations of the entire community. The Census of 1841 is sufficiently near the date of the accession of Victoria to furnish a tolerably correct estimate of the various functions performed in that great working-hive of which she was the queen-bee. In the spring of that year, out of the entire population of England, Wales, and Scotland, amounting to nearly nineteen millions, nearly eight millions, male and female, were distinctly classified by their occupations. They were the supporters of the residue of the population, including children of all ages. Speaking in round numbers, three millions were engaged in commerce, trade, and manufactures; a million and a half in agriculture; seven hundred thousand were labourers not agricultural; a hundred and thirty thousand formed the army at home and abroad; two hundred and eighteen thousand were employed on the sea and in inland navigation; sixty-three thousand were professional persons, clerical, legal, and medical; a hundred and forty thousand were following miscellaneous pursuits as educated persons; seventeen thousand were in the government Civil Service; twenty-five thousand were parochial and other officers; eleven hundred thousand were domestic servants; five hundred thousand were persons of independent means; and two hundred thousand were almspeople, pensioners, paupers, lunatics, and prisoners. This wonderful variety of stations and pursuits constitutes the distinctive character of modern British civilization. All are held together upon that great principle which Plato sets forth in emphatic words: "It is not alone wisdom and strength which makes a State simply wise and strong. But order, like that harmony called the diapason, is diffused throughout the whole State, making both the weakest, and the strongest, and the middling people, concent the same melody." A very large proportion of the three millions of the people engaged in commerce, trade, and manufacture were necessarily to be found in the cities and towns. In 1811, at the commencement of the Regency, there were in England only twelve of the cities and towns whose population exceeded thirty thousand; in Scotland there were four above that number. In 1841, taking the same limits of places as in 1811, there were thirty-one cities and towns in England with a larger population than thirty thousand, and in Scotland six. In the course of thirty years the London of one million ten thousand people had become the dwelling-place of one million seven hundred thousand;" Manchester and Salford, which thirty years before 1841 numbered a hundred In the Census of 1841 more extended limits of London were given as adopted by the Registrar-General, which gave the population as 1,873,676. |