vi to the Inspector of the district, with instructions to assemble the clerks of the several unions in the county at some convenient place and, in consultation with them, to make a final revision of the county return. The returns so revised are now presented ; and it is submitted that' from the course adopted in revising them a very great degree of accuracy in regard to area and valuation has been obtained. In regard to the names of owners, it must be observed that the person entered in the valuation and rate books as owner would not necessarily have such an interest in the property as to constitute him an owner within the meaning of the instructions for the preparation of the Return, and the union clerks were in such cases dependent on their own knowledge or on local inquiry and information obtained through the collectors of Poor Rate or other trustworthy parties ; but even in regard to this part of the Return the course adopted, of submitting the Return for the entire county to the joint examination of all the union clerks of that county under the superintendence of the Inspector of the district, has materially reduced the probabilities of error, and it is hoped that few cases will be found in which the name of the owner is not correctly inserted, or in which the same owner is entered more than once in the same county. Two sources of apparent, but not real, error should perhaps be noticed, viz.:—( 1.) Cases where the person entered as owner holds under a lease for more than 99 years, or under a renewable lease, or a fee- farm grant. In such cases the owner of the fee, or of any interest in the property above that of the person entered in the Return, may expect that he should be entered as the owner ; but this of course could not be done, as two owners could not be entered for the same property, and the requirements of the Return are complied with when a person is found having such an interest in the property as to constitute him an owner within the meaning of the instructions under which the Return has been prepared. ( 2.) In cases where a change of owners has taken place during the preparation and printing of the Return, but too late to be notified or inserted in the proof sheets. The examination of the voluminous returns received from the clerks of the several unions, the checking the area and valuation in each, and the subsequent re- arrangement and consolidation of the union returns into county returns, as well as the general arrange- ment and summarizing of them, and carrying them through the press, has devolved upon the statistical department of this office, the principal of which, Mr. DANIEL THOMAS TRACEY, has discharged the heavy additional duty thus thrown upon him with much zeal and intelligence, and in a manner which, in the opinion of the Board, merits the highest commendation. B. BANKS, Secretary. LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD, IRELAND, 20th April, 1876.