TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 87 

and a half; this is equal to the population of Belgium and Denmark. This increase 
is greater than in any other part of the continent, Prussian statistics do not afford a 
confirmation of the theories of Malthus. © Of the increase, 20 per cent. is from immi- 
gration, the emigration to America being deducted. The chief emigration has been 
from the neighbourhoods of Minden and Tréves. In 1815, Berlin contained 150,000 
inhabitants; in 1848, 420,000; in 1849, 11,000 less. Of the population, 4,500,000 
are inhabitants of towns. In Prussia, there are to every 100 males 103 females; in 
France 1043. More boys are born than girls. In the earlier periods of life, males 
are to females as 100to99. The standing army of Prussia is 137,000; men capable 
of bearing arms, 837,000. In 1843, of 4,800,000 women, 2,200,000 are unmarried, 
or rather without husbands, as widows are included. The average age of marriage 
for women is from 20 to 21; for men, 25 to 26. Protestants are to Roman Catholics 
as 5 to’3; Jews number 206,500. The conversions of Jews were from 100 to 150 a 
year; but since their disabilities were removed, the conversions have increased 50 
per cent. ; 

On the County of Warwick Asylum for Juvenile Offenders. 
- By C. Horre Bracesrrpce. 
The paper stated that the asylum was established about thirty years ago upon a 
simple plan. A few acres of land were attached to the farm-house engaged for the. 
asylum, but they were subsequently let off, as the soil was not adapted for cultivation 
by boys, and they were now simply instructed in shoemaking and tailoring. The 
boys had all committed offences for which they were tried at sessions or assizes, and 
the coming to the asylym was entirely voluntary on their part, nor was there any 
means of detaining them. The education given was ofa very plain and simple kind, 
but had been rendered more valuable by the pastoral care of the clergyman of the 
parish, the Rev. Mr. Powell. The committee of management consists of county 
magistrates chosen at quarter sessions. The average proportion reformed had been 
during the last three years about 65 per cent., and the average cost had been 
16/. 6s. 8d. per annum, although 46/. 17s. might be considered the price the 
benevolent have paid for each reform. [?] A comparison showed that the expense of 
punishing a criminal boy without reforming him cost the country more than it did 
to reform him, amounting as it did to 18/. 16s. 10d. per head, exclusive of expenses 
defrayed by Government in the prosecution and in the transportation to penal set- 
tlements. 
On the Fluctuations of the Annual Supply and average Price of Corn, in France, 
during the last seventy years, with particular reference to the four periods 
ending in 1792, 1814, 1830, and 1848. By J.T, Danson. 
It appeared from official sources that there are few of the departments of France 
in which the average consumption of grain of all kinds per head, per annum, falls 
short of an imperial quarter; that considerably more than half (by measure) of all 
the grain food thus consumed consists of wheat ; and that though the use of wheat 
as a large proportion of the food of the people is confined to particular localities, 
these localities are so distributed that whatever changes materially affect them may 
be safely assumed to affect, more or less, the whole country. Hence it was inferred, 
in the first instance, that the official average prices of wheat might be safely ac- 
cepted, in France as in England, as indicating the current price of focd. The first 
period of sixteen years (1778 to 1793) was distinguished from every subsequent period 
of similar length, and from most of those preceding, by the low average range and 
also by the uniformity of its prices. The ten years’ average of 1766 to 1775 was 18f. 
66c. per hectolitre. From 1778 to 1787 it was only 14f. 33c. In any subsequent 
period of ten years the average had been very little over or under 20f. The average 
of the six years, 1788 to 1793, was 21f. 81c.; and during this period the most distress- 
ing fluctuations occurred; the average price of 1789 being more than fifty per cent. 
above that of 1787, and the price of 1793 (35f.) being more than a hundred per cent. 
above that of 1791. Thus ten years of low prices were followed by six of high prices ; 
and these closed the period. The second period embraced the prices of eighteen 
years (1797to 1814). From 1797 to 1802 prices were generally high in France, as they 

