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speaking, the most prosperous, while districts in which popu- 

 lation is sparse are those in which the major part of it lives 

 from hand-to-mouth. Tanjore, with a population as dense 

 as 600 persons to the square mile, is a typical instance of 

 districts of the former class, and Anantapur and Kurnool, 

 with 134 and 109 persons, respectively, are examples of the 

 latter. In Tanjore, as we have already seen, the real wages 

 of agricultural labourers have considerably risen, and their 

 condition has distinctly improved. The rate of increase of 

 population in this district during the last decade, viz., 4'5 

 per cent., is no doubt very low as compared with the general 

 rate for the whole Presidency, amounting to 15*5 per cent., 

 but the reason for this is to be found not in insufficiency of 

 the means of subsistence, but in emigration caused by the 

 higher remuneration for labour obtainable in Ceylon, the 

 Straits Settlements, Burma, West Indies, &c. From the 

 emigration returns it appears that the loss of population due 

 to emigration, from 18th February 1881 to 26th February 

 1891, amounts to 97,237 persons, and if this number be 

 added to the population as ascertained by the census of 1891, 

 the real rate of increase in the Tanjore district will come 

 out as 9'1 per cent., or double the rate shown by the census. 

 It must also be remembered that, as emigrants are generally 

 male adults, the effect of emigration on the birth-rates, calcu- 

 lated with reference to the whole population, is to depress 

 the rates, while the effect of famine mortahty, which falls 

 heaviest on the old and the young, .sparing mostly adults of 

 the productive ages, is exactly the reverse. Thus the 97,000 

 emigrants, though forming only 4*5 per cent, of the total 

 population, bear the proportion of 18 per cent, to the adult 

 male population between the ages of 15 and 50, or, in other 

 words, the reduction in the birth-rate due to emigration, 

 assuming it to have operated throughout the ten years, may 

 be taken at nearly one-fifth. The death-rates must also 

 show an apparent increase in consequence of the larger 

 proportion of the juvenile and aged persons left in the 

 population, among whom the mortality, even under normal 

 conditions, is heavy. In no district, so far as is known, is 

 there any marked redundancy of labour in normal years, and, 

 since the last famine, there is a deficiency of it in several 

 districts. Even in a densely-peopled district like Yizaga- 

 patam, with 452 persons to the square mile, it has been found 

 necessary to import thousands of labourers from such a great 

 distance as the Punjab, for the construction of the East 

 Coast Railway, local labour not being procurable at anything 

 like reasonable rates. The same difficulty was felt in the 



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