"The resultant difference of the foregoing comparison, founded on public documents, shows an excess of fifty-two per cent of increase in each eighteen years; and if a like proportion continues, the population of the Filipinas Islands will be doubled in thirty-four years--an increase which could be judged incredible if we did not have an extraordinary example in Filadelfia [_i.e._, Philadelphia], which has doubled its population in twenty-eight years, as Buffon, supported by the authority of Doctor Franklin, affirms." The above assertion of Comyn has been realized now in all exactness, if we are to judge by the assertions, in his published works, of Don Felipe de Pan, a studious newspaper man of Manila; for, according to that writer, the population of Filipinas exceeded 9,000,000 in 1876. Ferreiro, secretary of the Sociedad Geografica de Madrid [_i.e._, "Geographical Society of Madrid"], also calculated the population of Filipinas in 1887 at 9,000,000 approximately, a number which seems to be somewhat above actual fact. In an investigation finished in the last quarter of 1894, the population of the archipelagoes which composed the general government of Filipinas appears in the following form: Christian parish population 6,414,373 In concealment [_i.e._, refugees] 128,287 Regular and secular clergy 2,651 Indian and Spanish military 21,513 Those in asylums [_asilados_] 689 Criminals [_penados_] 702 Chinese foreigners 74,504 White foreigners 1,000 Moros 309,000 Heathen 880,000 Total 7,832,719 Finally, the secretary's office of the archbishopric of Manila offers us the following enumeration with respect to the Catholics existing in the archipelagoes of Filipinas, Marianas, and Carolinas, in the year 1898, according to the following lists: Number of souls by dioceses In the archbishopric of Manila 1,811,445 In the bishopric of Cebu 1,748,872 In the bishopric of Jaro 1,310,754 In the bishopric of Nueva Segovia 997,629 In the bishopric of Nueva Caceres 691,298 Total number of Catholics 6,559,998