| Middlesborough | 75,532 | 91,302 | 20.9 | | Northampton | 75,075 | 87,021 | 15.9 | | Walsall | 71,789 | 86,430 | 20.4 | | St Helens | 72,413 | 84,410 | 16.6 | | Rochdale | 76,161 | 83,114 | 9.1 | +---------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+ * Administrative county. ** These districts, administratively distinct, belong topographically to Greater London. The proportion of married adults (aged twenty and upwards) was found to decrease from 1881 to 1901, being 630 per thousand in the former and 604.5 in the latter year. The marriage-rate per thousand has ranged since 1841 from 14.2 in 1886 to 17.6 in 1873, and is evidently closely associated with the general prosperity of the country, for in the latter year the value of the total imports and exports per head of the population of the United Kingdom was at its highest, and in the former year at its lowest. The five years 1895-1899 exhibited a remarkable sequence illustrative of this:-- +---------+---------------+-------------+ | | Marriage- | Value, | | Years. | Rate. | Exports and | | | | Imports. | +---------+---------------+-------------+ | | | £ s. d. | | 1895 | 15.0 | 17 19 3 | | 1896 | 15.8 | 18 14 1 | | 1897 | 16.0 | 18 14 3 | | 1898 | 16.3 | 19 0 5 | | 1899 | 16.5 | 20 1 8 | +---------+---------------+-------------+ The marriage-rate declined, subsequently to the year last quoted in this table, to 15.6 in 1903. (O. J. R. H.)