Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/769

745 POPULATION.] INDIA 745 Total Area and Population of All India. Area in Sq. Miles. Population. Density per Sq. Mile. Under British adniini- ) stration 898,381 191,096,603 212 Native States 575,265 49,155,746 85 Portuguese Possessions ... French Possessions 1,086 178 407,712 271,460 chiefly in towns. Grand total 1,474,910 240,931,521 163 According to the report of the registrar-general upon the English census of 1871, &quot;any density of a large country approaching 200 to a square mile implies mines, manufactures, or the industry of cities.&quot; But in India a density of thrice this limit, or 600 to the square mile, is often attained throughout large districts which are entirely dependent upon agriculture. Saran, for example, in North Behar, with an area of 2654 square miles and no town exceeding 50,000 inhabitants, has an average density of 778 to the square mile, with a maximum of 984 in the purely agricultural tlinnd or police circle of Mashrak. Taking the valley of the Ganges as a whole, from Saharan- pur down to Calcutta, the average density is about 500 to the square mile, or nearly double that of the United Kingdom. This high density is obtained without the presence of many large towns or centres of manufacturing life. Of the total number of 493,444 towns and villages in British India, only 44 are returned as having more than 50,000 inhabitants, 374 as having from 10,000 to 50,000, and 1070 as having from 5000 to 10,000. The 44 towns with more than 50,000 inhabitants have an aggregate urban population of a little more than 5^ millions, or less than 3 per cent, of the total population of British India; whereas the 34 towns in England and Wales exceeding the same limit have an aggregate urban population of nearly 7^ millions, or 32 per cent, of the total. Taking a lower limit, there are 139 towns in British India with more than 20,000 inhabitants, having an aggregate of 8,484,066, or less than 4^ per cent, of the total. Towns with more than 100,000 Inhabitants. Calcutta 1 776,579 Bombay 2 644, 405 Madras 2 397^552 Lucknow 284,779 Benares 175,188 Delhi 2 360,553 Patna 158,900 A^ra 149.008 Allahabad 143,693 Bangalore 142,513 Amritsar 142,381 Lahore 2 128,441 Cawnpur 122,770 Poona 118,886 Ahmadabad 116,873 Rangoon 108,000 Surat 107,149 Bareilly 102,982 The total number of inhabited houses enumerated in British India is 37,04] ,259. The average number of houses per square mile is 41, ranging from 102 in Oudh to 6 in British Burmah. The average number of persons per house is 5 &quot;15, being pretty uniform throughout. Contrary to the experience of the United Kingdom it is found that the number of inmates to each house is lower in the towns than in the country, the reason assigned being that the shop keepers do not bring their families into the towns with them. The houses are grouped into a total of 493,444 villages or townships, giving an average of 75 houses and 386 persons to each. The average area of each village or township is &quot;55 of a square mile. The villages seem to be largest in Bombay, with 614 inhabitants each, and smallest in British Burmah, with 195 inhabitants. Out of the total of 191,096,603 persons in British India, 98,055,381 are returned as males and 92,580,886 as females, leaving 460,336 of whom the sex was unspecified. The proportion of males to females is thus as 100 to 94. In England the females outnumber the males in the proportion of 105 to 100, an excess attributed mainly to emigration. In India, whence there is practically no emigration, it might be expected that this excess of females would disappear, and the two sexes be found on an equality. In the two great provinces of Bengal and Madras this is practically the case, the excess of females being not greater than 1 per cent., and the proportion being maintained uniformly throughout the districts. 15ut in Oudh the excess of males is 7 per cent., in Bombay 8 per 1 With suburbs, but excluding Howrah. 2 With suburbs. cent., in the North-Western Provinces 12 per cent., and in tho Punjeb as high as 16 per cent. We have no reason to suppose that the approximate equality of boys and girls does not hold good in the births throughout India, as in other countries ; and therefore this great excess of males can only be assigned to two causes (1) defective registration of females, especially of girls, and (2) female infanticide formerly, and carelessness of infant female life at the present day. Of the existence of these causes we possess independent testimony. In 1870 an act of the legislature was passed applying special regulations to villages or tracts suspected of infanticide, which is the besetting sin of certain high caste tribes of Rajputs. In one tribe of Meerut district only 8 girls under 12 were found to 80 boys. The act is put in force wherever there are less than 54 girls to 100 boys, but the exact limit is at the discretion of Government. The crime is now almost stamped out. The returns according to age throw some light upon this question. Children under 12 number altogether 66,969,764, and adults above 12 number 123,200,022, leaving 926,817 unspecified. The propor tion of children to adults is, therefore, as 54 to 100, the correspond ing proportion in England being 41 to 100. The highest proportion of children (62 to 100) is found in the Central Provinces, where the aboriginal tribes are strongest ; and the lowest proportion (50 to 100) in the North- Western Provinces. An examination of the Bengal returns, district by district, also leads to the conclusion that the aboriginal tribes are more prolific than the Hindus proper. Sub dividing these returns according to sex, we discover an extraordinary disparity. Of the adults, 62,022,461 are males and 61,197,561 are females. The proportion of male adults to females is, therefore, about 100 to 99, as compared with 100 males to 94 females in the general population. But on turning to the children under 12, we find as many as 35,787,564 boys to only 31,182,200 girls, or 100 boys to only 87 girls. This arises from the defective registration of girls, females under 12 being often returned as women. The following table shows the population of British Religious India as roughly subdivided according to religion, division. Broadly speaking, it may be said that at least nineteen out of every twenty people in India are either Hindus or Mahometans, and that there are seven of the former to two of the latter. Population according to Religion in British India. Religion. Number. Pel- cent. Tracts where most numerous. 139 343 820 73 07 4 South; and Upper Valley of 40 867 125 I 21-45 ] Ganges. Sind, Punjab. Eastern Bengal, Buddhist and Jains Sfkhs 2,832.851 1 174,436 1-49 62 and North-West Provinces. British Burmah only. Christians 897,682 47 Extreme Suuth. Others 3. 5 417 304 2 68 Unspecified 561,069 22 The schedules of the census fail entirely to give a satis- Ethnical factory classification of the races among which the vast division - population of India is divided. Using language as our criterion, the people might perhaps be arranged in five classes : (1) The old races of the south, known as the Dravidian stock, which includes, not only the great peoples using the literary languages of Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kanarese, but also scattered tribes speaking dialects of the same family, who are found as far north as the hills of Chutia Nagpur ; (2) the hill tribes of Central India, from the Bhils of Bombay to the Santals of Bengal, whose physical characteristics are negroid, and whose family of languages has received the name of Kolarian ; (3) the tribes of Indo-Chinese origin, who inhabit the southern slopes of the Himalayas, the greater part of the Assam valley, and the whole of Burmah; it seems probable that the semi-Uinduized low castes of Northern Bengal also belong to this stock ; (4) high-caste Hindus, or that off shoot of the august Aryan race which has imposed its language, its religion, and its name upon the greater part of the country ; (5) successive waves of Mahometan con querors, Arab, Afghan, Mughal, and Persian, who form in the aggregate but an infinitesimal element in the general population. Whether pure Aryans are now to be traced in any other class than that of the Brahmans 3 Professing for the most part various forms of aboriginal belief. XII - nt