0.4 decr. |
| Swansea (Wales) | 91,034 | 94,537 | 3.8 |
| Wolverhampton | 82,662 | 94,187 | 13.9 |
| Middlesborough | 75,532 | 91,302 | 20.9 |
| Northampton | 75,075 | 87,021 | 15.9 |
| Walsall | 71,789 | 86,430 | 20.4 |
| St Helens | 72,413 | 84,410 | 16.6 |
| Rochdale | 76,161 | 83,114 | 9.1 |
+---------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+
* Administrative county.

** These districts, administratively distinct, belong
topographically to Greater London.

The proportion of married adults (aged twenty and upwards) was found
to decrease from 1881 to 1901, being 630 per thousand in the former
and 604.5 in the latter year. The marriage-rate per thousand has
ranged since 1841 from 14.2 in 1886 to 17.6 in 1873, and is evidently
closely associated with the general prosperity of the country, for in
the latter year the value of the total imports and exports per head of
the population of the United Kingdom was at its highest, and in the
former year at its lowest. The five years 1895-1899 exhibited a
remarkable sequence illustrative of this:--

+---------+---------------+-------------+
| | Marriage- | Value, |
| Years. | Rate. | Exports and |
| | | Imports. |
+---------+---------------+-------------+
| | | L s. d. |
| 1895 | 15.0 | 17 19 3 |
| 1896 | 15.8 | 18 14 1 |
| 1897 | 16.0 | 18 14 3 |
| 1898 | 16.3 | 19 0 5 |
| 1899 | 16.5 | 20 1 8 |
+---------+---------------+-------------+

The marriage-rate declined, subsequently to the year last quoted in
this table, to 15.6 in 1903. (O. J. R. H.)

_Religion._--In attempting to give a concise account of the religious
conditions of England we are confronted from the outset with the absence
of any trustworthy statistics. A religious census, such as is customary
in other countries, has not been taken since 1851; nor is it probable
that such a census would be any true indication of the actual religious
beliefs of the population. Still less satisfactory, from this
standpoint, is the attempt to compile statistics of religious belief
from the registra