104 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



that marriage is less common now than 

 formerly, but that is not the case. 

 There has been little or no change in 

 the marriage rate or in the proportion 

 of people married in the course of the 

 past fifty years. Curves are here 

 drawn from the report of the English 

 registrar general for births, marriages 

 and deaths. 



These curves exhibit the remarkable 

 decline in the birth rate and in the 

 death rate. If they should continue in 

 their present course there would be 

 neither births nor deaths in England 

 seventy-five years hence. As a matter 

 of fact, the death rate can not decrease 

 much farther. The very low figure of 

 13.5 deaths for each thousand of the 

 population is due not only to improved 

 conditions and a great decrease in the 

 deaths of children and of those under 

 forty which can be maintained and in- 

 creased, but also to the fact that a 

 birth rate declining in the course of a 

 single generation from 36 to 24 has 

 given a population containing a com- 

 paratively small percentage of old 

 people and of young children among 

 whom deaths are most common. What 

 will happen to the birth rate, no one 

 can foretell. In France the births have 

 fallen below the deaths, and this may 

 happen in England and in Germany. 



Unlike the birth rate and the death 

 rate, the marriage rate has not altered 

 appreciably in the course of the past 

 forty years. It was, it is true, some- 

 what higher in the early seventies, but 

 it was only 16 in the early sixties. The 

 variation from year to year is caused 

 by economic and social conditions, so 

 that the marriage rate has been called 

 the barometer of the prosperity of a 

 nation. The lowest marriage rate in 

 England was 14.2 in 1886; it increased 

 to 16.5 in 1899 and has since declined 

 to 15. The constitution of the English 

 population is favorable to a low death 

 rate, but to a high birth rate and a 

 high marriage rate. Among each mil- 

 lion of the population there were in 

 1901 in England 257,525 between the 

 ages of 20 and 34; in Germany, 239,- 



857; in Prance, 233,548; in Sweden, 

 210,773. Most marriages occur be- 

 tween these ages and nearly all chil- 

 dren are born when the mother is be- 

 tween these ages. The excess of people 

 of these ages in Great Britain would 

 account for an excess of marriages and 

 births of 10 per cent, over France and 

 20 per cent, over Sweden. As the Eng- 

 lish population becomes stationary we 

 may expect a decrease in marriages 

 and births to that extent. 



In Germany as in England the mar- 

 riage rate is now about the same as it 

 was thirty years ago. It has increased 

 somewhat in France. The percentages 

 of women between 15 and 49 years old 

 who were married in 1901 was: In 

 France, 57.7; in Italy, 56.1; in the 

 German empire, 52.8, and in England, 

 49.2. In the course of twenty years 

 there was an increase in France and 

 Italy, a stationary condition in Ger- 

 many and a decrease in England. In 

 France, where the children are the few- 

 est, the proportion of married women 

 is the greatest as is also the number 

 of unlegitimized unions. The decreas- 

 ing birth rate is not caused by a de- 

 creasing marriage rate. It appears 

 that it is due to the fact that people 

 now marry with the intention of having 

 no children or no more children than is 

 convenient. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS 

 We record with regret the death of 

 Dr. William Hallock, professor of 

 physics in Columbia University, and of 

 Dr. William McMurtrie, one of the 

 leading industrial chemists of New 

 York City. 



The Paris Academy of Sciences has 

 elected Professor W. M. Davis, of Har- 

 vard University, a correspondent in the 

 Section of Geography and Navigation, 

 in the place of the late Sir George 

 Darwin. — The mathematical works of 

 the late Henri Poincare' are to be pub- 

 lished by the firm of Gauthier-Villars, 

 under the auspices of the minister of 

 public instruction and the Paris Acad- 

 emy of Sciences. 



