TOO MANY PRINCES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10063, 8 June 1910, Page 4

TOO MANY PRINCES.

Some mcst interesting vital statistics concerning European rulers and their descendants have been compiled and published by a Swedish savant named Sundboerg. His figures show that the number of Imperial and Royal personages has mure than doubled in 50 years, increasing from 727 to 1595 Princes as a class have more sons than daughters, the proportion being 119 to 1U0; while in the ordinary ranks of life 106 boys are born to every 100 girls. The late King Edward had t?>ree daughters and one r on. The Czar, ton, has three daughters and one son. But there are six Imperial German princes and only one princess; and King George of Greece has five sons and one daughter. A remarkable fact is that the progeny of the house of Hohenzollern i 3 persistently male; that of the Romanoffs as persistently female. European rulers do not reach a ripe old age; their average term of life is 63 years. There has never been a centenarian monarch or even prince, with the exception of old King WUhelm 1., who had just reached 100 when be died. The only chiefs of State in Europe today who are well on the way to their 100 th birthdays are the Prince Regent of Bulgaria, who is in his ninetieth year, and the Emperor King of AustriaHungary, who is nearing his 80ih anniversary.