The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-08-28
THE POpULATIOy on ,pApIS

We extract from La Presse the following inter
estng statistics relating to this subject, the
animation Of which, says our contemporary, all
questions of administration and of public works
must be based :''Ofthe 3S5 .242 families resident
in Paris, 900 occupy dwellings of which the an
nual rent is not higher than six pounds; ia 900
families occupy dwellings of a rent between six and
sixteen pounds IL, 900 rent of sixteen to twenty
pounds. The remainder of the population, say 40 :
900 families pay a rent higher than go per annum
and there only 1902 families paving more than
COG" = : ''The number of inhabitants who
are INDECENT or temporarily necesstous cannot be
much under 400 600 individuals
According to an inquiry instituted by the Cham
Der of Commerce in lS47, there in Paris $40 :
$50 curriers' of both sexes. In period of thirty
five years from 1917 the population of Paris has in
creased by 339, 900 souls, or AZ per cent Accord
ing to the of 1884, the population is classed
as follows: Mechanics As per cent, including both
sexes in receipt of salaries. % per cent; liberal
professions, l6 per cent; military 10 per cent com
mercal, 8 per cent. The 600, 900 inhabitants who
reside in Paris consume the tenth part of the en-
tire production of France. A Partisan eats annu-
ally as much meat as six inhabitants of some of
the provinces.
visions from sixty of our departments and three
foreign countries. 1t devOurs nearly all the fish
that Is caught on coasts and sends for its game
as far as Germany. The revenues of the Partisan
population, valued at $50 000 000 is drawn prin-
cipally from the three following sources The in
dustry and commerce of Paris produces annually
about $40 000 the civil list and State function
aries of all kinds spend annually in Paris about
f2O, 900 OOO the remaining f20 600 900 is received
from the floating population of strangers number
ing about 60 900.
From these general indications there results this
consequence, that Paris Capitalization is not only
political intellectual, artistic, &C.. but economic in
n very high degree. centre of population which
consumes of itself the tenth part of the general
productions of the country and third of its bud
get, is fact so considerable that it DESTROYS all
equilibrium. Another fact of the highest import
ance, which we gain from these figures is that out
of 345,000 families, $4,000 occupy dwellings of
which the rent is not higher than f6 per annum.
La Presse proceeds to state that no question is so
much disputed as whether this immense attraction
and absorption of the metropolis and consequent de-
population of the rural districts is benefit or an
evil? Our contemporary seems to be of opinion
that, 1t 1t be an evil at all, it is one irremediabe
and irresistible in the present transitorv state of
the economic organization of the country; that it
arises from the sudden extension of RAILWAYS having
increased the means of transport beyond the level
OF production, and that when knowledge and
capital shall have flown back into the provinces
by the same facilities of communications the ratio
OF production will increase and the equilibrium be
restored.
Our contemporary concludes with the following
bright vision of future prosperity for his country:
wv hen the new regime economie) shall be establish
ed, the peasant will give place to the agricultural
ourrier famariZed with modern lights. Rich fields
will extend themselves where we now see misery
and disorder reigning for want of capital, without
which the land remains unproductive Let us look
earlessly towards the future, without being STAYED
by obstacles mere transitory. This future is bril-
lant-lt is fertile the science which has created
1t, and by which it will never be abandoned"