The following table, which has been prepared by the French Ministry of Public Works, gives the railway mileage of the various countries of Europe and the United States up to the end of last year, with the number of miles constructed in that year, and the population per mile:

 Total Built in 1881 Population per Mile 
 Germany 21,313 331 2,154

Great Britain 18,157 164 1,939

France 17,134 895 2,170

Austria-Hungary 11,880 262 3,200

Italy 5,450 109 5,321

Spain 4,869 176 3,492

Sweden & Norway 4,616 273 1,408

Belgium 2,561 48 2,203

Switzerland 1,557 22 1,831

Holland 1,426 83 2,885

Denmark 1,053 25 1,919

Roumania 916 56 5,860

Turkey 866 - 2,891

Portugal 757 8 5,870

Greece 6 - 28,000

------- ----- ------

Total 107,306 2,455 3,168

United States 104,813 9,358 502 

It appears from this that the United States mileage was only 2,493 less than the total of all Europe, and at the present time it exceeds it, as the former country has built about 6,000 miles this year, whereas Europe has not exceeded 1,500. The difference in the number of persons per mile in the two cases is also very great, Europe taking six times as many persons to support a mile of railway as the States, and can only be accounted for by the fact that American railways are constructed much cheaper than the European ones.