Changes of population.
--The increase of over eight millions in our populations during the last ten years, contrasts wonderfully with the figures of some of the recent
European censuses.
Great Britain, it is true, shows a very fair rate of increase, considering the extent of her emigration.
But
France, which sends out but very few emigrants, has increased only about a quarter of a million within a period of five years. But it is a still more remarkable fact that there has been, during the last three years, a diminution of the human race in the
Austrian Empire to the extent of two million five hundred thousand.
The population returns for 1860 show, according to the
Vienna Gazette, that the population is now reduced to thirty-six millions, whereas in 1857 it amounted to thirty-eight and a half millions.
This is striking proof of the deteriorating tendencies of a despotic Government.
Ground down by heavy taxes, shut out from the invigorating exercise of their faculties in the way that seems beat to them, the people languish and decay.
Freedom is life-giving; despotism is worse than an epidemic.