176 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



the approximation to accuracy is surprising in a do- 

 minion at once so uncivilised and so extensive, yet 

 the approximation attained is still very far from the 

 degree of correctness that would justify my making 

 any nice calculations from the figures as they stand. 

 In only four of the twenty-one years over which the 

 registered vital statistics range is the population of 

 Eussia estimated, viz. in 1885, 1886, 1897, and 

 1899. 



In the year 1885 the excess of births over deaths 

 as registered was only 1,120,000, yet, while the 

 estimated population of that year is 81,725,000, 

 that of 1886 is 85,395,000, or 3,670,000 more an 

 impossible increase. 



Another feature in the Russian table as furnished 

 by the Registrar-General that renders it to me 

 suspicious, is that, though the marriage-rate as given 

 is higher than that of any other country, it yet seems 

 too low for the number of registered births. Accord- 

 ing to the table, the number of births to 100 

 marriages is 550. 



One or other of three hypotheses may be adopted 

 to account for this apparent great fecundity of 

 Russian marriages : first, that in Russia the average 

 number of children to a marriage is really greater 

 than in any other country of which we have know- 

 ledge ; or, secondly, that a large proportion of Russian 

 births are illegitimate ; or, thirdly, that the registration 

 tables are unreliable. To my mind the last alter- 

 native is that which recommends itself. 



