Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/835

 NOTES AND MEMORANDA 813 alleged. If, he said, the people would only co-operate with the in- specters, the practice of cribbing time would be stopped in three months. Miss Meats, of the Female Upholsterers' Union, stated that in her trade women were required to work three hours a day overtime and sometimes to work all night in the teeth of the Factory Acts. Dr. Tatham, Medical Officer of Health for Manchester, showed that while the rate of infant mortality for the whole country was only 162 per 1,000 children born, it was 220 in Blackburn, 183 in Salford, and 178 in Manchester in consequence, he believed, mainly of the employment of young married women in factories too soon after their confinement. In his opinion six months' absence at least was necessary. A good deal more evidence was given about women workers in various other industries, the most noteworthy being Mr. E. Shortt's on the excessive hours and other grievances of barmaids. It was a good public-house, he said, that only employed them 100 hours a week. JOHN RE FROM OUR PXRS CORRESPONDENT. SEVERAL interesting official documents have lately been issued by the French Government. The first is a Report on the movement of population in France during the year 1890, showing an excess of 38,446 deaths above the number of births (838,059 of the latter, and 876,505 of the former). Comparatively to the year 1889, there has been an increase of 81,572 deaths and a decrease of 42,520 births. The increase of mortality has been most narked in the beginning of the year, and the falling off of births toward the end of the year, so that both are considered as temporary effects of the disastrous epidemic of influenza. The number of marriages (269,332), has been inferior by 3,602, and the number of divorces (5,457) superior by 671, to the fires of the preceding annual period. The proportion of divorces is steadily rising, and has reached 7 per 10,000 married couples against 4 in 1886 and 5 in 1887. Another document deserving of notice is the Year-book (Annaire) for 1891, issued by the Ministry of Trade, of the Syndicats Profe,sionnels or professional Unions constituted according to the law of 1884, which first dispensed them from the preliminary authorization by the State to which in France all associations of more than twenty persons are subject. Their total number reaches 3,253, whereof 2,503 are classified as industrial and commercial, and 750 as agricultural. The former are subdivided into 1,127 associations of masters, 1,250 of workmen and 126 mixed associations, comprising both masters and workmen. There is an increase of 498 associations as compared with the preceding year'. To these legally constituted associations ought to