GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



355 



The area and population of the British Em- 

 pire in 1877 was as follows : 



The area and population of all the posses- 

 sions or countries, whether located in Europe, 

 Africa, Australia, or America, making up the 

 British Empire, are as follows : 



The movement of population for 1871 to 1876 

 was as follows : 



The Registrars' Returns for 1876 show that 

 in that year the birth-rate in the United King- 

 dom was 34.8 per 1,000 of the (estimated) pop- 

 ulation ; in England the rate rose to 36.5, and 

 in Scotland to 35.9, but in Ireland the registers 

 show only 26.4 births per 1,000 persons living. 

 The Returns for Scotland state that 8.6 per 

 cent, of the births in that country were illegiti- 

 mate ; in the mainland rural districts as many 

 as 10.5 per cent. A new Return introduced, 

 relating to the 8 principal towns of Scotland, 

 showed that in 1876 the ratio of illegitimate 

 births to the number of the possible mothe"rs 

 of such children (i. e., unmarried women, in- 

 cluding widows, between 15 and 45 years of 

 age) ranged from 1.66 per cent, in Edinburgh 

 to 2.57 per cent, in Aberdeen ; it was 2.31 per 

 cent, in Glasgow. The death-rate in the United 

 Kingdom in 1876 was as low as 20.4 per 1,000 

 persons living; 21 per 1,000 both in England 

 and Scotland, but only 17.4 per 1,000 in Ire- 

 land. The number of persons married in 1876 

 in England was higher than in any year except 

 1873 and 1874, but the ratio, which was 16.6 

 per 1,000 of the population, showed a slight 

 further decline from the high ratios of 17.5 and 

 17.6 in those two years ; in Scotland the num- 

 ber for 1876 has only once been exceeded 

 namely, in 1873, and the ratio, which was 15 

 per 1,000, exceeded the last 10 years' average, 

 though it was not quite up to the high rate of 

 1873 and 1874. In Ireland the ratio of last 

 year is returned at a fraction below 10 per 

 1,000, or a little short of the average. The 

 marriage rate in England in 1876 ranged from 



10.2 per 1,000 in extra-metropolitan Middlesex, 

 and 11.6 in Cornwall and Herefordshire, to 



19.3 and 19.5 in Nottinghamshire and Lanca- 

 shire. The 1,154,631 births -in the United 

 Kingdom in 1876 were more by 477,722 than 

 the deaths, this excess of births over deaths 

 being nearly 92,000 greater than the excess in 

 the preceding year. The 510,308 deaths in 

 England and Wales in 1876 included 129,537 of 

 infants under a year old ; and though this num- 



