12 THC CENSUS OF 1861. 



Rate of increase of French from 1*765 to 1861 2. 53 per ann. 



Rate of increase of French from 1852 to 1861 2 ,651 per ann. 



Rate of increase of Catholics in counties (mostly French) 



from 1851 to 1857 2.655 per ann. 



Rate of increase of Catholics in all Lower Canada from 



1851 to 1857 2.486 per anp. 



The near correspondence of the numbers arrived at by such very 

 different methods, inspires great confidence in their general accuracy, 

 and appears to place Lower Canada amongst the most rapidly increas- 

 ing nations in the world. 



In Upper Canada it is not possible to form any similar conclusion. 

 The clergy are required there also to make returns to the Clerks of 

 the Peace, but very few of them reach the Government. The only 

 county, from which I can find anything approaching to systematic 

 returns, is Haldimand, and they are not perfect enough to serve as 

 the basis for any conclusion, even if a single county were sufficient to 

 yield a trustworthy average. But if we cannot arrive at any such 

 satisfactory result, as in Lower Canada, we may make some compar- 

 isons as between the two sections, as far as regards the number of 

 births, which forms one important element of their relative rates of 

 increase. The births, as corrected from the number living under one, 

 according to the Census, do not differ very materially from those 

 shewn in the Prothonotaries returns. In the 41 counties of Lower 

 Canada, in which we can institute a comparison, the number living 

 under one, called births in the Census, is 23,353, and if we add to it 

 a proportion of the deaths, as before explained, the number becomes 

 24,653 ; but as the Prothonotaries' returns relate to a year later than 

 that for which the Census was taken, the whole population, and con- 

 sequently the births, would have to be increased at the average rate 

 of about 2^ per cent. The numbers, as corrected to the same period, 

 would therefore be 25,279 against 26,954. The main difference is in 

 the deaths, the Prothonotaries' returns giving 9,939 and the Census 

 only 6,498. We may, therefore, for the purpose of comparison be- 

 tween the two sections, take as approximately correct, the births as 

 above deduced from the Census, viz. : Upper Canada, 4.031 ; Lower 

 Canada, 3,892. This greater proportion of births to the whole popu- 

 lation is what one would a priori expect from the greater number of 

 the people in Upper Canada at the reproductive ages : but if we take 

 the percentage on the number of married women under forty, which 



