312 



FOX, CHAKLES. 



FRANCE. 



that he was compelled to relinquish the com- 

 mand to General Gillmore. He was brevetted 

 Brigadier and also Major-General, U. S. A., 

 March 13, 1865 ; was commander of the De- 

 partment of Florida from August 7, 1865, to 

 December 5, 1866, and assigned to temporary 

 duty in the Engineer Bureau from January to 

 May, 1867. He was commissioned lieutenant- 

 colonel, Corps of Engineers, in March, 1867. 

 His subsequent service had been mainly in the 

 Department of the Atlantic, and for more than 

 a year previous to his death he had been at 

 Nashua, in failing health. 



FOX, Sir CHAKLES, C. E., a distinguished 

 British civil engineer, born in Derby, England, 

 in 1810 ; died in London, June 16, 1874. At 

 an early age he was articled to his brother for 

 the medical profession, but a taste for engineer- 

 ing led him to devote to mechanical science 

 every leisure moment, and the impression pro- 

 duced upon his mind by the opening of the 

 Liverpool & Manchester Railway induced him 

 to relinquish medicine and become an engineer. 

 His first employer was Captain Ericsson. Mr. 

 Fox struggled on as a lecturer, as a scientific 

 assistant, and occasionally as a practical mech- 

 anist, until he was appointed by Robert Ste- 

 phenson assistant-engineer to the London & 

 Birmingham Railway Company, at the com- 

 mencement of the construction of that line. 

 He remained with the company until a year 

 after the opening of the line, in all five years, 

 when he joined the late Mr. Bramah in estab- 

 lishing the firm of Bramah, Fox & Co., the 

 name of which, on the retirement of the former, 

 was changed to that of Fox, Henderson & Co. 

 Their business was railroad-building and the 

 execution of other engineering works. His 

 greatest triumph was the construction of the 

 building for the Great Exhibition in Hyde 

 Park, in 1851. The drawings for this edifice 

 occupied Mr. Fox eighteen hours a day for 

 seven weeks, and he received the honor of 

 knighthood in recognition of his genius and 

 skill. He constructed the Crystal Palace at 

 Sydenham, and executed many extensive rail- 

 way and other engineering works. 



FRANCE, a republic of Europe. President, 

 Marshal Marie Edmond Patrice Maurice de 

 MacMahon, Duke of Magenta, elected May 24, 

 1873. Chief of the Cabinet, Colonel Robert; 

 Secretary of the President, Viscount d'Har- 

 court ; Vice-President of the Council of Min- 

 isters, at the close of the year 1873, was Gen- 

 eral Cissey. The National Assembly consists of 

 738 members. President, Louis Joseph Buffet. 



The area of France, according to the official 

 report on the census of 1872 (Statistique de la 

 France), was 204,092 square miles.* The pop- 

 ulation, according to the census of 1872, was 

 36,102,921. 



* The area of the several departments, as published 

 below, agrees with the- table given in the ANNUAL CYCLO- 

 PEDIA for 1873, except for the district of Belfort and the 

 department of Vosges; The Statistique dela France gives 

 for the former 233.44 square miles (instead of 234.72), and 

 for the latter 2263.93 (instead of 2266.17). 



The table on the next page exhibits the area 

 and population of each department, and the 

 movement of population during the year 1871. 



A comparison of the population in 1872 with 

 that of the present French territory in 1866 

 shows a decrease of 356,715, or of 1.2 per cent, 

 of the total population. This decrease is ex- 

 elusive of the loss which France sustained by 

 the cession of Alsace and Lorraine to Ger- 

 many. The movement of population from 1866 

 to 1871 was as follows : 



The excess of deaths over births in 1871 is 

 greater than in any former year, and exceeded 

 by far the expectations of French statesmen and 

 statisticians. A comparison of the table on the 

 next page shows that the excess of deaths ap- 

 pears in all departments except three, Crease, 

 Loire Inferieure, and Marne. The losses suf- 

 ered during the war are far from accounting 

 for this alarming fact, for the number of military 

 persons deceased in 1870 was only 33,164, and 

 in 1871, 61,165 ; figures which, though neces- 

 sarily incomplete, are yet altogether without 

 proportion to the entire mortality of the coun- 

 try. The decline of the French population 

 has, however, been going on for years. The 

 proportion of births to the total population, 

 which, in 1827, was still 3.11 per cent., did 

 not average, from 1848 to 1868, more than 

 2.62 per cent; it was 2.57 in 1869, 2.55 in 

 1870, and 2.26 in 1871. "While from 1817 to 

 1854, there was one birth to every 34.3 inhab- 

 itants, and less from 1847 to 1871, in the fol- 

 lowing proportions : 



1847-1854 1 birth to 37.4 inhabitants. 



1854-1860 1 birth to 37.3 



1860-1868 1 birth to 37.9 



1869 1 hirth to 38.8 



1870 1 birth to 39.4 



1871 1 birth to 44.2 



Considerable surprise has been caused by the 

 remarkable increase of suicide. In 1826, when 

 official returns on this subject were first pre- 

 pared, they numbered 1,739 ; in 1831, they 

 were 2,084; in 1836, 2,340; in 1839, 2,747; 

 in 1841, 2,814; in 1845, 3,085 ; in 1847, 3,647; 

 in 1852, 3,674; m 1860, 3,920; in 1869, 5,114; 

 and in 1872, 5,275. It was feared that in 1874 

 they would reach 7,000. As regards Paris 

 alone, there were 567 suicides in 1872, and 

 660 in 1873 ; while the total for 1874, it was 

 thought, would approach 1,000. 



The number of boys born considerably ex- 

 ceeds that of girls. From 1800 to 1860, the 

 proportion of boys to girls was 106 to 100 ; 

 from 1861 to 1868, it was 105 ; in 1869, 105.02 ; 

 in 1870, 104.79 ; in 1871, 104.87. In conse- 



