Scotland, 1821 to 1831 1 to 34 England, 1821 to 1831 1 to 35 Norway, 1832 ” France, 1771 to 1851 1 to 25 to 1 to 37 In a total population, at different periods, of 232,673,000, there were 8,733,000 births; whence an average on the grand scale of one birth to every 26.6 individuals. In France, however, the ratio has been steadily lessening, as seen by the following table:— Ratio of births. 1771 to 1775 1 to 25 1801 to 1810 1 to 30 1811 to 1825 1 to 32 1826 to 1836 1 to 33 1836 to 1840 1 to 34 1841 to 1845 1 to 35 1846 to 1850 1 to 37 The position of France, as compared with the rest of Europe, in respect to the ratio of births to the population at different periods, is made still more manifest by another table:— Annual ratio of births. 1 to 23 Venetian Provinces, 1827; Tuscany, 1834. 1 to 23.5 Kingdom of Naples, 1822 to 1824. 1 to 24 Tuscany, 1818; Sicily, 1824; Lombardy, 1827 to 1828; Russia, 1831. 1 to 24.5 Prussia, 1825 to 1826. 1 to 25 France, 1781; Austria, 1827; Russia, 1835; Prussia, 1836. 1 to 26 Sardinia, 1820; Hanover, Wurtemberg and Mecklenburg, 1826; Greece, 1828; Naples, 1830. 1 to 27 Spain, 1826; Germany and Switzerland, 1828; Poland, 1830; Ireland, 1831. 1 to 27.5 Portugal, 1815 to 1819. 1 to 28 Holland, 1813 to 1824; Bavaria and Sweden, 1825; Austria, 1829; Belgium, 1836. 1 to 29 Canton Lucerne, 1810; Holland, 1832. 1 to 29.8 France, 1801. 1 to 30 Sweden and Norway, 1828; Belgium, 1832; Denmark, 1833; Turkey, 1835; States of the Church, 1836. 1 to 31 Sicily, 1832; Hanover, 1835. 1 to 31.4 France, 1811. 1 to 31.6 France, 1821. 1 to 32 Austria, 1830; Great Britain and Switzerland, 1831. 1 to 33 France, 1828 to 1831. 1 to 34 Norway and Holstein, 1826; Scotland, 1831; France, 1834 to 1841. 1 to 35 Denmark, 1810; England, 1831; Norway, 1832. 1 to 37 France, 1851. In Paris, strange to say, the decrease in the ratio of births to the population, though decided and steady, has not, in actual proportion, been as great as in the empire at large, showing that the cause, whatever we find it to be, is not one depending on the influence of a metropolis alone for its existence. From 1817 to 1831 there averaged, in Paris, one birth to 26.87 inhabitants; but from 1846 to 1851, one to 31.98.[17]