Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1879 — ECONOMIC statistics. [ARTICLE]

ECONOMIC statistics.

Railways; Merchant Marine, Telegraphs, ahd Pdstal Service. [From the Popular Science Monthly.] A general review of the economic statistics of the world in 1877 is published by Prof. Neumann Spaltart, of Vienna; from which we take the following: Railways—ln the last three decades the net-work of European railways has arisen from 9,000 kilometers (5,580 miles) in 1847 to 154,200 kilometers'' (95,603 miles) in 1877. Of these 154,200 kilometers, 27,500 are in Great Britain and Ireland, 24,800 in AustroHungary, 24,400 in France, 18,000 in Russia, 30,000 in Germany. The remainder is distributed among the smaller states. According to these figures Europe has 150 kilometers of railway for each thousand square kilometers, and 4.8 kilometers per 10,000 inhabitants. These ratios are exceeded in Belgium, Great Britain and Ireland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, etc.

America—ln 1800 the United States had 42 kilometers of railways; now they have 128,000 kilometers (76,360 miles), or 133 kilometers square kilometers of surface, and 28 kilometers per 10,000 inhabitants. In the remainder of this continent there are 19,000 kilometers of railway, of which Canada has 7,000. In India and Ceylon there are 11,000 kilometers, or 46 kilometers per 1,000 square kilometers of area, and one-half kilometer per 10,000 inhabitants. In Africa there are 2,800 kilometers, whereof 1,800 belong to Egypt. Australia and New Zealand possess 4,000 kilometers of railway. On all these railways are employed 62,000 locomotive engines, 112,000 passenger carriages, and 1,500,000 freight cars; they annually carry 1,150,000,000 passengers and 16,000,000,000 quarters of freight. Marine—The merchant marine of Europe embraces in all 7,400 steamships, with a tonnage of 3,000,000 tons, of which total the United Kingdom contributes 5,200 steamships, and over 2,000,000,000 tons of freight. ■p,Telegraphs—At the beginning of 1877 IjUrOpC 11UVI tiMX,VW JYIIVALiv-L * * Y graph lines, whereof 65,000 belong to Russia, 54,000 to France, 48,000 to Germany and 40,000 to the United Kingdom. America had then 183,000 kilometers. The dispatches sent over European lines numbered 82,000,000 in 1876; those sent over the American lines amounted to 23,000,000. Asia and Australia have each 38.000,000 to 39,000,000 kilometers, transmitting 2,500,000 dispatches. In Africa there are only 15,000 kilometers, almost exclusively in Egypt, Algiers and Tunis, and the number of dispatches sent is 1,200,000. There are 560 submarine cables, representing a total of 65,000 nautical miles.

Postal Service—Tne postal service now extends to the uttermost bounds of civilization, embracing the whole globe, from Hammerfest to New Zealand. In Europe over 3,000,000,000 letters and postal cards are carried yearly. In this total the United Kingdom is represented by 1,000,000,000, Germany bv 700,000,000, France by 336,000,000, Aus-tro-Hungary by 300,000,00, Italy by 120,000,000. This would give England 33 letters per head of the population: for Switzerland, 21; Germany, 15; France, 10. Turkey figures for only 0.2 of a letter per capita. In America the number of letters and postal cards carried was 700,000,000; in Asia, 150,000,000; in Australia, 50,000,000; in Africa, 25,000,000. ♦One kilometer is about % of a mile.