Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/280

244 a century. The decennial rates of increase amounted to 14 per cent. from 1801 to 1811; to 16 per cent. from 1811 to 1821; to 15 per cent. from 1821 to 1831; to 14 per cent. from 1831 to 1841; to 13 per cent. from 1841 to 1851; and to 12 per cent. from 1851 to 1861. The progress of population for the last quarter of a century may be stated roundly in the fact that each quinquennial period added about a million to the account. Thus, in 1836–40 the population was rising through its sixteenth million; in 1841–45 through its seventeenth; in 1846–50 through its eighteenth; in 1851–55, through its nineteenth; in 1856–60, through its twentieth; and in 1861–65, through its twenty-first million. The year 1870 brought the twenty-second, and 1875 is calculated to bring the twenty-third million.

Subjoined is the birth, death, and marriage rate of the population of England and Wales, for the last fifteen years, after the returns of the Registrar-General. The estimated population is for the middle of the year, and including army, navy, and merchant seamen at home, belonging to England and Wales:—

The estimated population of England and Wales in the middle of the year 1870 was 22,090,163.

The proportion of male to female children born in England is as 104,811 to 100,000. But as the former suffer from a higher rate of mortality than the latter, the equilibrium between the sexes is restored about the tenth year of life, and is finally changed, by emigration, war, and perilous male occupations, to the extent that there are 100,000 women, of all ages, to 95,008 men in England.

The number of paupers in receipt of relief in the several unions and parishes, constituted under boards of guardians in England and