RELATIVE POPULATION OF ENGLAND AND THE CHANNEL ISLANDS.
pro THE EDITOR ON THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—In your editorial note, appended to Mr. Hill's letter on this subject, you assert that " the Channel Islands are not more thickly populated than England." From the figures given in " The Statesman's Year-Book " for 1885, which you will find on p. 251, I calculate that the population of England per square mile is 484'3, while that of the Channel Islands is 1,1693. These figures do not quite bear out Mr. Brodrick's estimated propor- tion of 31, but are over 21.1 in favour of the density of the Channel-Island population. At first sight I suspected that the area of the Channel Islands was understated at seventy-five square miles ; but an examination of the map convinces me that it is pretty near the truth.—I am, Sir, &c., R. M.
[Our correspondent is right. We had included the Isle of Man in our estimate, which does not properly belong to the Channel Islands, and which, being very much less thickly popu- lated than England and much larger than all the Channel Islands, greatly reduced the average of the population. But hardly any general inference can be deduced from so small an area as that of seventy-five square miles.—En. Spectator.]
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