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* GREAT BRITAIN. 181 GREAT BRITAIN. large rural area, which in 1801 oontaiiipd nearly half of the total poimlalion, made only an in- significant gain compared with that of the whole country, and actually sull'ered a decrease in the last thirty-year period. A study of Scotland would reveal a similar movement of the popula- tion. The following table shows the population for towns having above 200,000 inhabitants in 1901. There are si.xteen such towns as against nineteen for the United States, although the population in the latter country is more than twice that of Great Britain. London's steady growth has kept it far in advance of all other cities of the world in population. CITIES 1861 1891 1901 London 2.804,000 394,800 443,900 338,700 296,000 207.000 185.000 154.000 168.000 106,200 4,328.000 618.052 629,500 505,300 478,000 367,500 324,200 289.300 264.796 265.700 204,900 200,400 213,800 198,000 186,300 174,600 4,530,000 760 400 685,000 644,000 Birmingham 522 000 428 000 Sheffield ■. 380 700 Bristol .. . 328 HIM) Edinburp;h 316,4tt0 279 800 Hull 97,000 74,600 102,400 109,000 68,000 240 600 Nottingham Salford 239,700 ''■^l 000 Newcastle-upon-Tyne. . 214,800 211,000 The gain in the population of Great Britain has been made in spite of the fact that so many of its inhabitants have migrated to its colonial possessions, or other countries. The largest exo- dus was during the period of 1880 to 1893, when the English emigration averaged over 1.50,000 an- nually, and the Scotch over 95,000 annually. Since that period the emigration has averaged less than two-thirds of this total amount. This is proportionately much less, however, than the emigration from Ireland. (See Ireland.) The United States received about two-thirds of the whole numlier. At the time of the famine in Ireland (1845 and subsequent years), a large number of Irish came to Great Britain, and in recent years there has been an increase in the immigration from other countries to Great Bri- tain, Russian and Polish .Jews, Belgians, and Germans being the most numerous. The figures for the immigration and for the emigration in Great Britain at the end of the nineteenth century were almost equal. The immigrants in 1900 were 175,747, against 151,309 in 1891. In 1901 there were 15.721.728 males and 10,804,347 females in Englan<l and Wales; in Scotland, 1,942,717 males and 2,082,930 females. The birth-rate is de- creasing, being, for England and Wales, 29.3 per thousand living persons in 1899, as against 35 in 1871. The loss in the growth of population is largely oll'set by the decrease in the death- rate which in 1871 was 22.6 to each thousand individuals, as against 18.3 in 1899. The mar- riage-rate for the United Kingdom in 1809 was 16.5 per thousand of the population. In 1891 there was 51.2 per cent, of the population of Wales and Monmouthshire who couhl speak Welsh, 22.6 per cent, of whom could speak Eng- lish also. In 1881 70 per cent, of the jicquilation could speak Welsh. In ISOl there was 0.32 per cent, of the population in Scotland who could speak Gaelic, which was slightly greater than the corresponding percentage in 1881. Those who spoke Gaelic only numbered 1.09 per cent. of the jMipulation. See lliKi.AND. Kelkho.n. In England and Vales, in Scot- land, and in Ireland. dilVeri'iit cluirclics are dominant: in the first, the Protestant Episcopal; in the second, the Presbyterian; and in the third, the Catholic. In the first two the respective churches are the established State churches. The Protestant Episcopal Church was also the es- (ablisheil Church of Ireland from 1801 until dis- establishment in 1871. The religious reformation of the si.xteenth century was received differently, and followed different courses in each of the three political divisions. In England and Wales the Church maintained its organization unbroken, simply severing its connection with Rome. The movement in Scotland was more radical, necessi- tating a new organization. In Ireland the native Irish element remained loyal to Rome, only the limited English population revolting. But while the respective churches which the Reformation left in power in the three kingdoms are still the predominant organizations, their majorities have been reduced, and the present religious status differs much from that of the earlier time. The changes have been most marked in Eng- land and Wales. From the first there were Dis- senters from the State Church ; and the Presby- terians, Congregationalists (or Independents), and Baptists date from this early period. Just prior to the rise of Cromwell the Dissenters had apparently secured considerable power; but llio attempt to make the Presbyterian Church the established Church (1048) failed. Of course the Puritan, or virtually the Dissenting, element were dominant during Cromwell's revolution and rule. In the reaction following this reformation the ranks of the Dissenters were niucli reduced, and it was not until the religious revival of tlm next century that they again began to become jirominent. In 1700 it was estimated that the Dissenters numbered less than one-twentieth of the English population. In the eighteenth cen- tury a sort of religious indifference settled over the country, from which it was aroused by the ardent enthusiasm and the simple faith that characterized the preaching of Wesley and his Methodist following. Wesley himself remained a member of the State Church, and desired that his followers should not be separated from it: but divergence from the Established Church was carried too far for this to be possible, and after his death the INIethodists became organized (1795) as a separate body. The spirit of the movement was taken up, in a degree, by other bodies, and the older dissenting churches, par- ticularly the Congregationalists, enjoyed a con- siderable growth in membership. In the course of time there were a number of divisions within the Methodist Church, but the Wesleyan ]Ip1ho- dists, with a little over half of the entire Methodist following, are stronger than any other dissenting Church. In the absence of any re- ligious census, the strength of the different ele- ments is estimated upon some such basis as the percentage of marriages celebrated according to the rites of the different bodies. In 1899, in England and Wales, the Episcopal rites were used in 67.8 per cent, of the mar- riages, the Catholic rites in 4.1 per cent., while the ceremonies in the registered places of other denominations numbered 12.4 per cent., and the