RACE SUICIDE IN MODERN TIMES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2600, 13 January 1904, Page 35

RACE SUICIDE IN MODERN TIMES.

Advancement in civilisation and prosperity appears to affect the vital statistics of all nations alike (says the San Francisco Chronicle). In modern times France has shown the most marked decrease in the ratio of births to deaths. From 1815, the last year of the Napoleonic wars, to 1830, the proportional excess of births over deaths for every 10,000 inhabitants was 61. Between 1831 and 1850 it dropped to 41. In the following 20 years there was a further decrease, the excess of births numbering only 25. In the decade ending 1900 the excess was re-

duced to 6, and in the latter year the proportionate excess of births over deaths in every 10,000 inhabitants of the Republic was only 3. France entered the nineteenth century with a population of 26,000,000; she closed it with 38,000,000. But Great Britain had meantime started with 12,000,000 and ended with 41,000,000, and fche population of Germany had grown from 15,000,000 to 56,000,000. During the last 40 or 50 years the people of each of these nations have enjoyed more luxurious living than they did before. While the death rate in England, through the introduction of improved sanitation, has been steadily declining since I£6l, the vital statistics of the country show a very marked

decline in the birth rate. Now the Minister of Public Instruction and Medical Affairs finds that the vital statistics of Prussia, which comprises three-fifths of the population of Germany, show a steady decrease in the birth rate there also since I£6l. In the latter year it was 40.9 ; now it is only 36.5. In the city of Berlin the birth rate has fallen from 46 in 1861 to 26.6 this year. The latter is only 4.4- above tbe rate in France, which is the lowest in the world. The question of race suicide thus seems to be one that is disturbing all of the_ more prosperous of modern nations as it did Rome during the Augustan age, when legislation had to be enacted in order to encourage the growth of population. France

has been seriously discussing various methods of arresting the decline of the birth rate. An extra parliamentary commission has been appointed to seek means of increasing the number of births and diminishing mortality, and Government bonuses for large families and heavy taxes on bachelors and childless couples have been suggested. It is expected that the German Emperor will take cognisance of the conditions existing in his realm and suggest drastic means of arresting there the race suicide which President Roosevelt so vigorously attacked in the United States.

— A wild elephant lias a keen sense of smell. At a distance of 1000 yards it can scent an enemy.

— According to Professor Brander Matthews, of Columbia University, U.S.A., before the year 2000 English will havo forced its right to be considered a world's language. At the beginning of the nineteenth century it was spoken by about 20,000,000, whereas in 1900 it was spoken byover 130,000,000. —In order to obtain able-bodied motormen capable of standing the strain of operating trolley cars in New York, the Metropolitan Railway Company has asked the Commission of Immigration to inform young Irishmen, Englishmen, and Swedes who speak English that positions as motormen await them, as the surface roads of the company are short of men.