Page:The-new-brunswick-magazine-v3-n3-sep-1899.djvu/7

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THE FRENCH CANADIAN RACE.
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sufficient to go back to 1765, at which date the French Canadian population numbered 69,810 souls.

In 1891 the French population of Canada numbered 1,404,974 of which 103,452 were in the Maritime Provinces and were presumably Acadian French to a large degree. As the census returns showed that there were in the Maritime Provinces 4,364 persons who were born in Quebec province it would be fair to suppose that about 3,500 of these were French Canadians and thus there remains the number of 100,000 French Acadians to be deducted from the total of 1,404,974 leaving 1,304,974 as the French Canadian population of the Dominion in 1891.

To this must be added the number in the United States. Here again the French Acadians come in to complicate the position, because during several de-cades there has been more or less of a movement of Acadians to the New England States and these are not distinguished from the French Canadians in the United States Census.

Professor Davidson assumes that if we reduce the number of French Canadians in the United States from 537,298 as given in the United States Census of 1890, to 500,000 by excluding 37,298 as likely to be the number of French Acadians, we shall not be far wrong.

Thus the total increase of the race between 1765 and 1890–91 is ascertainable within a close approximation and the resultant rate of increase is therefore not based on conjecture.

The population of 1765, which was 69,810, increased to 1,804,974 in 1890-91. These figures show that the natural increase of the French Canadian people on the continent is equal to a doubling of the population every 27 years.

The conjectural portions of the Professor's calcu-