Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1880 — Russian Vital Statistics. [ARTICLE]

Russian Vital Statistics.

The fourteenth number of the second series of the Slattsticshe Jahrbuch, lately published, gives some interesting details concerning the population of Russia. A careful series of investigations extending over years gives the average annual number of births in Russia as 3,163,405; of the children born 1,619,108 were males and 1,587,297 females. The average annual deaths, 2,382,196—viz.: 1,214,566 males and 1,167,729 females. This gives a net annual average increase to the population of 781,209, which, assuming the population in the fifty Governments to be about 65,000,000, would be a mean increase of 1.2 per cent. The man-iages average annually 646,917. If the present average rate of increase be maintained during the next fifty-eight years, the population of Russia will, at the end of that period, have been doubled. The corresponding increase goes on much more slowly in some other European countries. Thus, for example, according to the present rate of increase in the several countries, the population would be doubled in Sweden at the end of sixtyeight years; in Belgium at the end of seventy-nine years, and in Austria at at the end of ninety-five; but the same result will not happen in Italy till the end of 141 years, and in France till 165 years have passed. The greatest increase is to be observed in the Western and Southern (Polish) Governments, where it is over 1.5 per cent., while the least, or less than 1 per cent., is in the Northeastern aud Baltic districts. In the Governments of Esthonia and St. Petersburg there is actually a decrease of population amounting to about 0.6 per cent, in the former district, and 0.33 per cent, in the latter. Three per cent, of all the children born are illegitimate, which is only one-third of the proportion existing in the neighboring Sweden. The greatest number of births occur in autumn, and the least in spring. In the mass of the population the proportion of boys to girls is 102 to 100; but among the Jews the state of things is reversed, there being 128.9 girls to every 100 boys.