Rural Depopulation 135 



Even when we adopt the technical 

 division of the last census, and take rural 

 in a very restricted sense, we still find that 

 there has been an increase of 2*9 per cent., 

 and absolutely of some 200,000 ; against an 

 urban rate of increase of 15*2, and an absolute 

 increase of about 4I millions. 



Finally, we may take districts in which 

 there are absolutely no urban districts or 

 parts of districts, of which there were 112 

 in the last census. A very interesting table 

 is given in the Report, giving the figures 

 in every census from 1801 to the last 

 (1901) ; that is just 100 years. In the 

 first half of the century there was an 

 increase in these purely rural districts in 

 every decennium, but at a gradually 

 diminishing rate, except for the unusually 

 rapid increase in the decennium 181 1 to 

 182 1, where, as almost always happens 



