THE HAPPIEST COUNTRY IN EUROPE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1789, 13 September 1888, Page 4

THE HAPPIEST COUNTRY IN EUROPE.

According to Dr Alice Vickery the first place belongs to France, chiefly because French families do not exceed manageable dimensions. She says : In the first place, while the surplus of women in the United Kingdom and in Germany amounts to nearly 50,000 and 1,000,000 respectively, France, in 1881, had a surplus of only 92,000 women, and, as a consequence, marriages are more prevalent in proportion to population in France than elsewhere; and, curiously enoagh—contrary to tne general opinion in this country—France has the smallest proportion of illegitimate births. Thus from 1825 to 1867 the percentage of all illegitimate births was 7'2 in France B*2 in Prussia, 10 in Sweden, 11 in Austria, and 22 in Bavaria. France has the lowest birth rate of all European Countries—viz, 23.8 per 1000, against 31 for the United Kingdom, and 38 for Germany. The average number of children to a family is now 3 2, against 4*o in England and Wales, 5'25 in Scotland, and 5'4 in Ireland. Germany has an average of nearly five to a family. France contains a far greater proportion of grown up persons than any other nation in Europe. There are in each 10,000 persons in the several States of Europe, i the following numbers in the most, productive age, between 15 and 60: In France, 5273; in Holland, 4964; in Sweden, 4954; in Great Bntian, 4372; in the United States, 4396. France, of all nations in Europe, has the highest average of ages of the living—namely, 31*06 years; against Holland, 27-76; Sweden, 27'66; Great Britain, 26'5 ; the United States, 231. France, too, has a greater number of persons attaining old age than any other country; for out of every 100 deaths, those over the age of 60 are—in France 36, Switzerland 34, England 30, Belgium 28, Wurfcemburg 21, Prussia 19, Austria only 17.