men drawn to conscription in the years 1851, 1856, and 1859, there

Of every hundred convicts who entered the prisons in 1850 and

Education which was compulsory under the Dutch government has ceased to be so since 1830.

Revenue and Expenditure.

The public income and expenditure of Belgium has averaged for the last few years the sum of 150 millions of francs, or 6 millions sterling. The following were the chief items of the revenue and expenditure of 1862 :

The year 1862, therefore, showed a surplus of 339,0917. sterling. The budget for 1863, as voted by the chambers, amounted to an estimated income of 156,046,790 francs, or 6,241,8727., being an increase of 97,4927. over the preceding year. The expenditure for 1863 was set down in the budget at 148,500,000 francs, or 5,940,000l., amounting to an increase of 134,7117. The actual receipts for the first nine months of 1863 amounted to 85,947,609 francs, against 85,055,196 francs during the corresponding period of 1862. As the Minister of Finance estimated the receipts for the first nine months of 1863 at only 83,291,250 francs, there was a surplus of 2,656,359 francs over and above the expenditure.

The following was the total amount and rate of interest of the public debt of Belgium on May 1, 1861 :

On May 1, 1863, the public debt had been reduced by 7,000,000 francs, or 280,000%.

Army and Navy.

According to the law of June 8, 1853, the standing army of Belgium is to consist of 100,000 men, distributed over 16 regiments of infantry, 7 regiments of cavalry, and 4 regiments of artillery. The actual number of soldiers under arms, at the end of 1862, amounted to 73,718 rank and file, comprising 56,550 infantry, 8,202 cavalry, 6,700 artillery, 1,690 engineers, and 576 train. The artillery was possessed of 152 pieces of ordnance.

The armiy is formed by conscription, to which every able man who has completed his nineteenth year is liable. Substitution is permitted. The legal period of service is eight years, of which, however, one-half is allowed, as a rule, on furlough. A comparatively large

number of men are on service in the eleven fortresses of the kingdom, Antwerp, Mons, Charleroi, Philippeville, Tirlemont, Ash, Tournay, Menin, Ypres, Ghent, and Namur.

The navy of Belgium consists of seven vessels, namely a brig of 20 guns, a sloop of 12, and two gunboats of 5 guns each, with three transport steamers.

acres.

Population.

Belgium has an area of 11,313 square miles, or 7,363,982 English The kingdom is divided into nine provinces, the area and population of which were as follows in the two last official enumerations, of 1846 and 1856:

The last general census of October 15, 1856, stated the population, as above, at 4,529,560; while the official returns* of births and deaths showed an increase on January 1, 1861, up to 4,731,957 souls. More recent calculations, made at the commencement of 1863, state the numbers to be 4,980,000. This gives 440 souls to the square mile, proving Belgium to be the densest inhabited country in Europe. About two and a half millions of the inhabitants are Flemish, the rest Walloon and French. According to a semi-official statement made in 1857,† there were at that time 908,000 families in Belgium, of which 89,630 were in good circumstances, 373,000 in straitened (pénible) condition, and 446,000 families in poverty. Stated in percentage, this gives 9 to the first, 42 to the second, and 49 to the third class. The social condition of the people is further described by a return of Oct. 1, 1856, which states the number of

Documents Statistiques, publiés par le Département de l'Intérieur. Bruxelles.

† Report of the Commission appointed to enquire into the state of Charitable Institutions. Published April 1857.

'known beggars' to amount to 88,019 individuals, of which 48,041 were of the male sex. Of the five million inhabitants of Belgium, about one million and a half live in 86 towns, and three millions and a half in 2,445 country parishes.

The occupations of the people are seen in the following tabular statement, giving the number of persons, of each sex, employed in the various trades and professions at the time of the census of October 15, 1856:—

The extraordinary large number of 'persons without a profession,' amounting to one-half of the population, is not explained in the official returns. It appears probable that about one-fourth of the population of Belgium is engaged in agricultural pursuits; another fourth in trade and manufactures, chiefly the great staple industries, the iron and coal trades; and the remaining two-fourths belong to the unproductive classes.

Trade and Commerce.

The industrial activity of Belgium is chiefly represented in manufactures of metals, particularly iron. Iron ore is found in abundance in every province of Belgium, but principally in Namur, Hainault, Liège, and Luxemburg - the four mining provinces. That found in the five northern provinces is all so-called 'alluvial' ore, found on the surface, and not in subterranean mines. The aggregate value of the mineral produce was as follows in each of the three years 1851, 1859, and 1860:

Subjoined is a statement of the values of the principal mineral and metallurgical exports of Belgium during the years 1851, 1857, and 1860