LAW OF POPULATION ILLUSTRATED 187 



was elevated in almost as great a degree by the 

 numbers who died at home from the effects of their 

 wounds and of exposure during the campaign. In 

 1873, Prussia suffered severely from a visitation of 

 cholera. The mortalities of these four years had the 

 effect of producing an abnormal number of marriages, 

 bringing up the average marriage-rate of the decade to 

 the high figure of 88 per 10,000 persons. In the 

 three years 1871, 1872, 1873, the number of 

 marriages per 10,000 persons was respectively 104, 

 101, 97. The explanation of the birth-rate being 

 somewhat higher in the decade 187483, which was 

 free from abnormal mortalities, than in the decade 

 which had the four calamitous years, notwithstanding 

 that the marriage-rate fell from an average of 88 to 

 an average of 82 per 10,000 persons, is found in the 

 fact that the large number of marriages in the last 

 four years of the first decade yielded the greater number 

 of their resultant births in the second. 



Before the Franco-Prussian War, the industries of 

 Prussia were in a flourishing condition, and the 

 expansion of the labour market was represented by a 

 decennial growth of population of more than 11 per 

 cent. The excess of emigration over immigration did 

 not amount to more than 5 per cent, of the natural 

 increase. But the access of militaryism after the war, 

 the stringency of the conscription, and the burdens it 

 entailed, were the inciting causes of a vastly increased 

 emigration. 



In place of an annual departure of 10,000 



