POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



691 



he was only about eighteen months old. 

 Sometimes the whole history of a lifetime 

 will be flashed before the mind as in an in- 

 stantaneous picture. That this occurs some- 

 times when death, or peril of death, is im- 

 minent, is quite certain. It may be that 

 this occurs very frequently before actual 

 death ; but this we cannot know, as all the 

 uistances of which we have accounts are 

 those in which a man has described his sen- 

 sations after having been saved from dying 

 — especially from drowning. "When all 

 hope of being saved is gone," says the au- 

 thor, "and the very struggle with the water 

 is now made without conscious effort, it 

 would seem that, without being prompted 

 by the will, the memory suddenly grasps 

 at once the deeds of the life that now ap- 

 pears about to close, and at the same time 

 — and this is the most singular fact of the 

 phenomenon — recognizes the usual rectitude 

 or wrong of each act [?]. There is," he con- 

 tinues, '' a case of this kind recorded of an 

 English naval officer, who thus remembered 

 the events of his life at the moment when 

 he was struggling hopelessly in the wake 

 of the ship from which he had fallen ; and 

 he confessed that he had been especially 

 struck by the sudden coming into his 

 thoughts of a schoolboy lie that he had long 

 forgotten." 



Economic Statistics of the World. — A 



general review of the economic statistics 

 of the world in 1877 is published by Pro- 

 fessor Neumann Spallart, of Vienna ; from 

 it we take the following statements : 



Railways. — In the last three decades 

 the network of European railways has risen 

 from 9,000 kilometres (5,580 miles) in 1847 

 to 154,200 kilometres' (95,604 miles) in 

 1877. Of these 154,200 kilometres 27,500 

 are in Great Britain and Ireland ; 24,800 

 in Austro-Hungary ; 23,400 in France ; 

 18,000 in Russia ; 30,000 in Germany. The 

 remainder is distributed among the smaller 

 states. According to these figures Europe 

 has 150 kilometres of railway for each thou- 

 sand square kilometres and 4-8 kilometres 

 per 10,000 inhabitants. These ratios are 

 exceeded in Belgium, Great Britain and Ire- 

 land, Switzerland, the Netherlands, etc. 



I One kilometre is about { of a mile. 



America. — In 1830 the United States 

 had 42 kilometres of railway ; now they 

 have 128,000 kilometres (79,360 miles), or 

 133 kilometres for every 1,000 square kilo- 

 metres of surface, and 28 kilometres per 

 10,000 inhabitants. In the remainder of 

 this continent there are 17,000 kilometres 

 of railway, of which Canada has 7,000. 



In India and Ceylon there are 11,000 

 kilometres, or 46 kilometres per 1,000 

 square kilometres of area and ■J kilometre 

 per 10,000 inhabitants. In Africa there are 

 2,800 kilometres, whereof 1,800 belong to 

 Egypt. Australia and New Zealand pos- 

 sess 4,000 kilometres of railway. 



On all these railways are employed 62,- 

 000 locomotive-engines, 112,000 passenger- 

 carriages, and 1,500,000 freight-cars; they 

 annually carry 1,150,000,000 passengers, 

 and 16,000,000,000 quarters of freight. 



Marine. — The merchant marine of Eu- 

 rope embraces in all 7,400 ocean steam- 

 ships with a tonnage of 3,000,000 tons, of 

 which totals the United Kingdom contrib- 

 utes 5,200 steamships and over 2,000,000,- 

 000 tons of freight. 



Telegraphs. — At the beginning of 1877 

 Europe had 351,000 kilometres of tele- 

 graph lines, whereof 65,000 belonged to 

 Russia, 54,000 to France, 48,000 to Ger- 

 many, 40,000 to the United Kingdom. 

 America had then 183,000 kilometres. The 

 dispatches sent over European lines num- 

 bered 82,000,000 in 1876 ; those sent over 

 American lines amounted to 23,000,000. 

 Asia and Australia have each 38,000 to 

 39,000 kilometres, transmitting 2,500,000 

 dispatches. In Africa there are only 15,- 

 000 kilometres, almost exclusively in Egypt, 

 Algiers, and Tunis, and the number of dis- 

 patches sent is 1,200,000. There are 560 

 submarine cables, representing a total length 

 of 65,000 nautical miles. 



Postal Service. — The postal service now 

 extends to the uttermost bounds of civiliza- 

 tion, embracing the whole globe, from Ham- 

 mersfest to New Zealand. 



In Europe over 3,000,000,000 letters and 

 postal-cards are carried yearly. In this to- 

 tal the United Kingdom is represented by 

 over 1,000,000,000; Germany by 700,000,- 

 000 ; France by 366,000,000 ; Austro-Hun- 

 gary by 300,000,000 ; Italy by 120,000,000. 

 This would give for England 33 letters per 



