﻿314 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 47 



Shan-hsi, Shen-hsi, Chih-li, and southern Mongolia in 1892-93 and 

 1894. There have also been numerous epidemics of cholera and 

 plague which have devastated sections of the Empire in the last 

 twenty to thirty years, and still we have not exhausted the list of 

 causes of violent fluctuations, of extraordinary loss to the population 

 of China during the XIX century. 1 



It must not be lost sight of that these figures represent only the 

 mortality among adults ; it is extremely improbable that infants were 

 counted at all. 



Popoff, in his study on the population in China, 2 estimates that the 

 population of China proper has not only not increased during the 

 period of forty years, from 1842 to 1882, but has even diminished by 

 the considerable number of 30,942,592. 



The only reliable data I have found on the subject of Chinese vital 

 statistics are the following : 



In 1880 the Governor of the Province of Che-kiang reported 3 to 

 the Emperor that as the result of a general census of the Province 

 taken in 1879, it was found that the population was 11,541,054. 



Mr. Popoff, the Interpreter of the Russian Legation in China, 

 was informed in 1882 by the Board of Revenue in Peking that the 

 population of this same province of Che-kiang was then 11,588,692, 

 and in 1885 the same Board informed the writer of the present paper 

 that it was then 11,684,348. 



As corroborative evidence of the value of these figures, we learn 

 that Commissioner of Customs Alfred E. Hippisley 4 found by a 

 careful report made to him by the Taotai of the Prefecture of Wen- 

 chou that the average number of persons per home was about 5.14, 

 and that the total population of the prefecture was 1,841,690. " The 

 area of the Prefecture being about 4,500 square miles, the average 

 population would therefore seem to be about 409 to the square mile 

 in this prefecture, and thus largely in excess of the general average 

 of the province." 



The best available information concerning the area of the province 

 of Che-kiaug 5 gives it as 34,700 square miles. Assuming, then, that 



1 1 was told in 1901 by the late Li Hung-chang that over 30,000 Chinese lost 

 their lives in Peking alone during the Boxer troubles of 1900. Admitting 

 that this figure and all those here given are exaggerated, it is true beyond all 

 doubt that the loss to the population from these causes has been fearful. 



2 P. S. Popoff in Novoe Vrcmya, No. 3066, 10th Sept., 18S4. Conf. S. Wells 

 Williams, The Middle Kingdom, I, 270. 



3 Peking Gazette, March 17, 1880. 



* Trade Report of Wen-chou for 18S1, pp. 27-28. 



5 Statesman's Year Book, 1902, p. 495. It may be said that the returns for 



