Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1889 — The Happiest of Nations. [ARTICLE]

The Happiest of Nations.

It has been said that the happiest nation is that in which the proportion of men and women is,most nearly equal, in which the number of illegitimate births is least, whicji contains the greatest number of healthy adults, in which the average life is the longest, and in which the proportion of people beyond sixty years of age is the highest. According to the Paris Temps, France is the country in which all these conditions are most fully met. While* in Great Britain there are 750,000, and in Germany 1,000,000 more women than men, in Fiance the excess is only 92,000. Between the years of 1825 and 1867 the illegitimate births varied in different countries of the continent from 8.2 to 25 per cent., but in France they were only 7.2 per cent. The mortality in England is 31, in Germany 38 and in Erance 23.8. The proportion of inhabitants between fifteen and sixty years of age is greater in France than in any other country, and the same favorable showing is made for the average duration of life and for the number of vigorous old people. Nevertheless the population of the country is stationary or even decreasing, and this in spite of the fact that emigration is small as compared with that from other countries.