Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 January 1880 — Rural Population of Germany. [ARTICLE]

Rural Population of Germany.

The rural districts throughout Germany, says the London Railway News, are in a most deplorable state of poverty. The peasantry'and the majority of small farmers cannot subsist even with abundant harvests. The small provincial towns are in no better condition. All this distress is put down to depressed state of trade, but the real cause must be looked for elsewhere. It is the outcome, as it were, of psychological causes which have cropped out of the war and the disheartening consequences connected therewith. The Germans, who, formerly, have borne so well the reputation of possessing a mild and meditative character, seem to have lost these qualities since the French war. Hence the existing discontent. A statistical paper in Germany has lately shown that France, with a population of 39,000,000 inhabitants, has upward of 100,000,000 acres of land under cultivation, while Germany, with an aggregate of 42,000,000 inhabitant*, can bo&it only of haring 80,000,000 acre# under cultivation,