Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/96

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FRANCE.

The following table exhibits the moral condition of the people as regards marriage, giving, according to official returns, the number of living births, legitimate and illegitimate, in parts and the whole of France, in the year 1865 : —

Legitimate

Illegi imate

Proportion of

legitimate to

one illegitimate

Department of the Seine Town population. Country population

Total

46,062 230,224 653,694

15,984 29,6'69 30,247

2-88

7-76

21-61

929,980

75,900

12-21

The proportion of legitimate births to illegitimate was almost precisely the same in the five preceding years, being at the rate of 21-| to one for the country population, of 7f to one for the towns, and of not quite 3 to one for the department of the Seine, that is, the capital of France. It is probable that the facts exhibited in these statistics have some influence in producing an excessive rate of infant mortality in many parts of France. According to a report of the British Secretary of Embassy, dated July 1, 186 ( J, the following was the per-centage of deaths among children, from one day old to twelve months, in several departments, including that of the capital, on the average of the last years —

Loire Inferieure ........ 90 per cent.

Seine S7 ,,

Eure 78 „

Calvados 78 „

Aube 69 „

' It seems,' adds the report, ' that infanticide and abortion are very much on the increase, and that the local authorities, instead of bringing these crirnes to light, seek rather to conceal them, in order that they should not appear on the criminal statistics. It is thought that since the abolition of the box in the doors of the Foundling Hospitals, which secured the secret admission of children, very many more are made away with. There are other causes, apper- taining to the peculiar constitution of French society, which it is asserted have a decided and marked effect upon the increase of the population.'

Revenue and Expenditure.

The Senatus-Consultum of December 31, 18G1, inaugurated the system by which the budgets of the French Government until IS?!) wen: drawn up. Under this system, the Minister of Finance distinguished between three classes of income, namely, ordinary,