Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 32.djvu/483

Rh, and the decrease in pauperism are also entitled to the highest consideration in this discussion. In the United States the aggregate savings-bank deposits increased from 1849,581,000 in 1873, to $3,152,932,000 in 1886, an increase of over 150 per cent in thirteen years, while the increase in the population of the country during that same time was probably not in excess of 30 per cent. The increase in the deposits of the savings-banks of all other countries, for which data are accessible, show the same law of rapid increase, though not in so large a progressive ratio as in the United States. Thus, in Great Britain the increase between 1875 and 1885 as regards deposits was 40 per cent, and in the number of depositors over 50 per cent, while the increase in population during the same period was about 10 per cent. Switzerland and Sweden and Norway lead all the nations of Europe in the ratio of savings-deposits to the population—the increase, comparing 1860 with 1881, having been from the ratio of 4·2 to 35·5 in the former, and in the case of the latter, from 6·8 to 18·1. In Prussia, where the savings-banks are used almost exclusively by the poorer classes, the deposits for 1886 showed an increase of 876,000,000 marks over the year 1878. The percentage increase in deposits and depositors in France and Italy in recent years has also been large, and far in excess of any percentage increase in their population. The aggregate savings-deposits in various institutions and societies for the Continent of Europe, in 1885, was estimated at £338,000,000; or, including Great Britain, £538,000,000 ($2,690,000,000).

There are no statistics of national pauperism in the United States, and general conclusions are based mainly on the returns made in the eight States of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Michigan. A report made by the standing