BRITAIN. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is a dominion in the extreme west of Europe, which now sways the destinies of British India, and has many colonies. It is ruled over by a sovereign, with responsible ministers, and two Houses of Parliament, viz. the House of Commons and the House of Lords. And for the govern ment of India, there is, in London, a minister with a council of twelve, composed of men acquainted with India ; it also sends to British India for administration, a Viceroy and Governor-General, with a Governor for Bombay and one for Madras ; appoints councillors and finance ministers, with judges for the High Courts of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, and for the North-West Provinces. For the command of the three British-Indian armies, Great Britain sends three Commanders in-chief, with several generals of divisions. The United Kingdom of Great Britain has many colonies and dependencies, and its entire dominions are usually designated the British Empire, over which it rules by means of viceroys, governors general with councils, governors with councils, parliaments, and commissioners. The area and population are as under : Sq. Miles. Population.
Brit. N. America, Gt.
Britain, and Brit. India, 5,438,000 188,514,000 British Feudatory India, 596,700 47,909,109 Colonies of Great Britain, . 4,562,000 161,486,000 In Europe, it includes Heligoland, with five square miles of territory ; Gibraltar, with less than two ; and Malta with 115,—the last two being military stations, with garrisons amounting to some 14,000 men. The population of Heligoland in 1871 was 1813 ; of Gibraltar, 26,216 ; and of Malta, 29,084.
In America in the Dominion of Canada, a popu lation but slightly exceeding that of Scotland inhabits a country ten times the extent of Scot land, and is increasing steadily, but not rapidly, at something like an average rate of 14 per cent. in the decade. Of the several provinces of which the Dominion is made up, Ontario (which contains the purest Anglo-Saxon population) had in 1871, 1,620,851 inhabitants, Quebec had 1,191,516, and New Brunswick had 285,594. Nova Scotia
had 387,800. Prince Edward Island, which joined the confederation in 1873, had 94,021 ; and New foundland numbers 146,000 inhabitants. Besides these are Manitoba (formerly known as the Red River Settlement), British Columbia, and the sparsely-peopled territory formerly ruled by the Hudson's Bay Company. — With the Bermudas, but excluding the un enumerated provinces of the North-West, the total population of this section of British dominions is set down at 3,789,670, inhabiting an area of 3,376,925 square miles.
The Irest India Islands, with an area of 13,109 square miles, have a population of a little more than one million, and there is abundant room for the development of the human race in their splen did climate and genial soil. .Jamaica, which had 377,000 inhabitants in 1814, and 441,000 in 1861, reached in 1871 the aggregate of 506,154 ; and in the last ten years there has been no devastating epidemic. In Barbadocs, the black and mixed population is growing in numbers, while the whites are dwindling.
Passing from the islands of the Mexican Gulf to the continent, there is British Honduras or Belize, a dependency of Jamaica, with a population of 24,710, of whom only 377 arc whites. British Guiana reckons 193,491 inhabitants, excluding the 'aborigines,' but including 48,976 coolies, immigrants from Asia. The Falkland Islands, with 803 inhabitants, close the list of British American possessions.
In the African Continent and the adjacent islands, Britain claims 236,860 square miles of territory, peopled by 1,813,450 inhabitants, of which the island of Ascension has 27, and that of St. Helena 6241. On the mainland, Sierra Leone had 38,936 inhabitants in 1871. The Gambia Settlements, 14,190 inhabitants ; the Gold Coast about 900,000. The island of Lagos, which was ceded in 1861, has 62,021 inhabitants, of whom 94 are whites. In South Africa, the 'colonized or partially colonized settlements-the Cape, Griqualand, and Natal-comprise an area of 229,582 square miles, and have an estimated population of 961,505 inhabitants.