THE QUAKERS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
notice a few words about the statistics of the Quakers in your last issue ; perhaps you may think that some further figures may be of sufficient general interest to merit insertion. It is not the ease, as you seem to infer, that their numbers are dwindling. They have been absolutely stationary for many years, and I doubt if they ever were higher. The influence of the body was always largely in excess of its numerical proportion, and has lessened not because the Society is weaker, but because the world is more enlightened.
The Quaker statistics are certainly a study. Their annual marriage rate is 4 per thousand, while in the United Kingdom it is about eight. In England generally 1,000 persons will in a year have increased by nearly twelve ; 1,000 Quakers will have lessened by 11. In Ireland 1,000 persons increase in a year by 9, while 1,000 Quakers fall off by 3f. These are, of course, mere birth and death rates, making no allowance for emigration. One more fact. While, among the public, the preponderance of women over men is something infinitesimal, about 2 per cent., among the Eng- lish Quakers it is nearly 12 per cent., and among the Irish 20 per cent.
These are startling figures. As there is scarcely any emigration, the only explanation I can offer is that a large number of Quaker men marry out of the Society, and thus leave it. What the cause of the low marriage rate can be is difficult to tell. The statisti- cians suggested some time ago that in similar classes of the nation generally it might be as low, but of this I have strong doubts. Certain it is that in no other body is there so large a proportion
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