Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1875 — FACTS AND FIGURES. [ARTICLE]

FACTS AND FIGURES.

—The aggregate amount of precious metals produced in the States and Territories west of the Missouri River, including British Columbia, during 1874, reached $74,401,055, being an excess of $2,142,362 over the yield of 1873. —The Government pays twenty-five cents apiece on the guns it makes fit the Springfield (Mass.) armory, as royalty for some of the patents embraced, the same going to the owner of the patents. During the year ending last July the armory made 18,010 of the new rifles and 10,020 carbines. —The total value of the woolen goods turned out from the Maine mills during the past year is placed at some $7,500,000. A North Berwick factory has done a large business in flannels, manufacturing $175,000; a Waterboro factory about $75,000 in blankets; the Bates mill of Lewiston, $204,900 worth of Moscow beavers and repellants; a Winthrop Jfaffftory some $250,000 worth of blankets, —Statistical tables show that there are in the whole world about 164 cities with 100,000 inhabitants; nine with over 1,000,000; twelve with from 1,000,000 down to 500,000; twenty with from 300,000 to 400,000; thirty-three with from 200,000 to 300,000; and ninety with from 100,000 to 200,000. The aggregate of the population of these large cities comprises 50,000,000 inhabitants—that is to say, the twenty-eighth part of the entire population of the globe. —Most Americans imagine that we have the greatest country and the largest factories in the world. The national finger is pointed to the rolling mills of -Pennsylvania as though their equal were never 'seen. Perhaps it would enlighten the patriots to know that the steel works of Alfred Krupp, in Germany, coyer 900 acres and contain 280 steam engines and 70 steam hammers, 550 melting and cement ovens, 200,000 crucibles, 600 tool machines. And only 11,000 men are employed. —According to La Nature, Dr. Habel has recently arrived at the conclusion, after mature study, that the guano beds are not made of the excrements of seabirds, as has been hitherto supposed. Chemical treatment has disclosed an indissoluble residue composed of fossil sponge and marine plants and animalcule. Hubei’s opinion isthal guan& ie made of fossil remains, of which the organic mattfer has been transformed into a nitrogenized substance, while the mineral constituents have remained unaltered. —The Providence School Committee seem to think that the sewing school opened by the city about seven years ago has been pretty successful. Eleven hundred and twenty girls, gathered from the streets, have attended it, 700 of whom are now employed as seamstresses at from $3 to sl2 a week. Four or five hundred of the girls were so poorly clad when they were taken in hand that they could not attend the day school and they were provided with' garments. The pupils have made 3,660 garments, which have been distributed among the poor. —The number of children in Illinois under twenty-one years of age in 1873 was 1,399,684, and 1,444,141 in 1874; the number between six and twenty-one years of age in 1873 was 909,994, and 938,878 in 1874. The number of schoolhouses lias increased from 11,323 to 11,484, while the number of public freescliools appears to have slightly decreased. In 1873 there were 20,775 teachers employed, and 21,129 in 1874. The number of pupils enrolled in 1874 was 671,775, against 654,309 in the previous year. The expenditures for 1874 were $7,865 682.18, the cost per scholar on average daily attendance being $j3.73. —From the general statistics of civilized countries it is found that the annual death-rate per thousand persons, taking all ages, sexes and conditions, is never less than twelve. The number dying in New York city in the last week of July, 1874, was at the rate of forty-four out of a thousand; but taking the year round the average death-rate of New York qity may be set down at about thirty, showing that three persons die where one ought to; three graves are dug where only one should be ; two persons out of three die prematurely; would not die if proper care were taken; and proper care means to live cleanly, eat regularly, work with a steady industry and get all the sleep the system will, take. -