434 



ITALY. 



The population of the principal cities was as 

 follows : 



The emigration in 1881 amounted to 135,832 

 persons, against 119,901 in 1880, 119,831 in 

 1879, 96,268 in 1878, 99,213 in 1877, and 108,- 

 771 in 1876. 



The number of marriages and births and 

 deaths, including still-births, for the last five 

 years reported, was as follows: 



The Roman Catholic faith is nominally the 

 state religion ; but since the establishment of 

 the kingdom and the subsequent suppression 

 of the temporal government of the Pope, the 

 church and the clergy possess no authority in 

 the state that is not regulated by the Govern- 

 ment, which has placed all creeds on practi- 

 cally the same footing. There have been fu- 

 tile attempts, under the new laws, to propagate 

 Protestant creeds. Of the total population in 

 1871 of 26,801,154 souls, 26,658,679, or 99| 

 per cent, were Catholics, 58,651 Protestants, 

 35,356 Israelites, and 48,468 of other faiths 

 and professed non-believers. There are 45 

 archiepiscopal and 198 episcopal sees, many of 

 which, during the conflict between the Gov- 

 ernment and the Church, have been left vacant, 

 owing to the refusal of the Government to 

 accept the nominees of the Pope, the royal 

 consent being necessary for their installation. 

 The number of religious houses was reported 

 in 1865 to be 2,382 ; the number of religious 

 persons, 28,991, of whom 14,807 were men 

 and 14,184 women. The proportion of priests 

 to the general population was reported in 1869 

 to be 7 per thousand, the average proportion 



in other Catholic countries being 4 per thou- 

 sand. The Siccardil aw, passed by the Sar- 

 dinian Chamber in 1850, and extended over 

 the rest of Italy in 1861, had the effect of di- 

 minishing the number of the clergy by cutting 

 off a great part of their incomes. In 1866 a 

 law was passed abolishing the corporate exist- 

 ence of the religious orders and confiscating 

 their property. 



A large part of the confiscated property of 

 the monastic establishments was applied to 

 popular education. In 1882 there were pri- 

 mary schools maintained in 7,533 of the 8,276 

 communes. The number of teachers employed 

 was about 41,000, of whom one half were 

 women. The annual appropriation for the 

 schools is 31,000,000 lire.* There were also 

 7,422 private elementary schools, employing 

 7,422 male and 4,444 female teachers, and at- 

 tended by 63,000 male and 92,228 female pu- 

 pils. There are besides 11,161 evening schools 

 for males and 492 for females, the former with 

 439,624, the latter with 16,063 scholars. In 

 the twenty-two universities there were 12,580 

 students in 1878. An inquiry into the illiteracy 

 of conscripts called into service at the age of 

 twenty-one, in 1868, revealed the fact that 

 64'27 per cent at that time were without the 

 rudiments of education. From statistics col- 

 lected in 1871, the proportion of totally illit- 

 erate above six years of age was 42 per cent 

 of the males and 53 per cent of the females, 

 throughout Italy. In 1882 the proportion was 

 found to have diminished to 35 per cent of 

 the males and 47 per cent of the females. Be- 

 tween the ages of twenty and twenty-five 

 there were 28 per cent fewer totally illiterate 

 persons than ten years before. The propor- 

 tion of illiterate conscripts decreased to 52 per 

 centt in the conscriptions of 1879 and 1880, 

 about the same as in Hungary. 



The lines of railroad in operation at the be- 

 ginning of 1881 had an aggregate length of 

 8,713 kilometres. The receipts in 1880 were 

 180,106,819 lire. The total cost of their con- 

 struction was 2,616,737,000 lire. 



The post-offices in 1880 numbered 3,328 ; 

 the number of letters and postal-cards sent, 

 165,824,944; ofprinted inclosures, 155,218, 754; 

 of postal-orders, 3,972,418. The receipts were 

 28,189,618 lire, and the expenses 24,357,935 

 lire. 



The length of telegraph lines at the begin- 

 ning of 1882 was 26,880 kilometres ; of wires, 

 89,150, besides 185 kilometres of submarine 

 cable. The number of dispatches sent was 

 6,250,496, of which 5,015,005 were private do- 

 mestic, and 517,599 private international mes- 



* One lire = 19'8 cents. 



t Austria has made more rapid progress than Italy in edu- 

 cation. In 1867 the proportion of illiterate conscripts was 

 about the same in both countries ; but it has been reduced 

 to 89 per cent in Cisleithan Austria. In France the propor- 

 tion is only 14 per cent, in Belgium 19. In Germany, the 

 levy of 1880 showed 1'57 per cent. In Wurtemberg there 

 were virtually no illiterates arriving of age, in Bavaria only 

 0-47 per cent, and in other provinces low percentages; but in 

 Slavic Fosen the proportion rises to 11 per cejit. 



