Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 70.djvu/50

46 Russia. Here, according to J. de la Roi, as many as 13,128 Jews have been directly converted to Christianity during the nineteenth century, and since mixed marriages were legalized in 1875, 10,160 Jews married christians; in Russia no such marriages have taken place, except of those who adopted Christianity and are included among the converts. In Russia the birth rate was 35.43 in 1897, not much lower than in the beginning of the last century. On the other hand, in Prussia the rates were high in 1822-40—35.46—but kept on sinking since their emancipation, reaching 18.71 in 1904. In other words, if the Jews in Prussia had remained in their original civil condition, unaffected by modern conditions of life, they would have maintained their birth rates as the Jews in Russia, and the number of children born during 1904 would have been about 13,000 instead of 6,913, as was the case. During the thirty years, 1875-1904, there occurred altogether 267,775 births by Jewish mothers in Prussia. If they had maintained their birth rates at 35 per 1,000, the number born would have been about 385,000 during that period. The decline in fertility has consequently caused a loss of 117,000 to the Jews, and if to this are added the large number of conversions and of mixed marriages, which have taken place in that country during these thirty years, it is evident that the total loss sustained by Judaism was larger in Prussia where there are less than 400,000 Jews, than among the 5,500,000 Jews in Russia during the entire nineteenth century.

The results of these conditions are seen when the relative number of Jews in Germany is considered. In 1861 there were 138 Jews to 10,000 christians; in 1900 the number sank to 114, and the last census taken in 1905 shows another decrease—there are only 109.8 Jews to 10,000 christians. The same has been the case with the Jews in other German provinces, excepting Saxony:

Although there was a large emigration of Germans who left for America and for German colonies, still there was an enormous increase of population in that country. In contrast with this increase are the Jews in that country: although very few emigrated within the last thirty years, and many Jews from other countries have immigrated to Germany, still they have not kept pace with the general increase of