among them 'Souvenirs of Exile (1850); History of the House of Savoy) (1860); and 'Reflections on the Actual Condition of Italy' (1869).

BELGIOJOSO, Italy, town in the province and eight miles southeast of Pavia. It is situated in a beautiful and fertile plain between the Po and the Olona, and is well built, containing a parish and an auxiliary church. The old castle, in which Francis I was temporarily lodged after being taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia, in 1525, has been converted into a magnificent château, surrounded by fine gardens. Pop. 4,800.

BELGIUM (Flemish, Belgie; French, Belgique; German, Belgien), a kingdom of Europe, bounded north by Holland, northwest by the North Sea, west and south by France, and east by the duchy of Luxemburg, Rhenish Prussia and Dutch Limburg. Its greatest length, northwest to southeast, is 165 miles; greatest breadth, north to south, 120 miles; area, 11,373 square miles. The country is triangular in shape, having its vertex in the west, the base resting on Germany in the east, the shorter side facing Holland and the sea and the larger forming the frontier of France. For administrative purposes Belgium is divided into nine provinces Brabant, Antwerp, East Flanders, West Flanders, Hainaut, Liége, Limburg, Luxemburg and Namur. Differing little in area, these provinces are arranged to form a compact and commodious division of the country. Brussels, the capital, is situated in Brabant, which occupies the centre and may be considered the metropolitan province. The following table shows the areas of the provinces, with their estimated population, 31 Dec. 1912:

The last census, taken 31 Dec. 1910, placed the population at 7,423,784; the above official estimate reveals an increase of 147,603 in two years. The 1912 figures gave 3,756,872 males; 3,814,505 females. Excluding infants, the census (1910) showed that 2,833,334 spoke only French; 3,220,662 only Flemish ; 31,415 only German; 871,288 both French and Flemish; 74,993 both French and German; 8,652 German and Flemish; and 52,547 who were conversant with all three languages. At the same time there were 254,547 foreigners residing in Belgium, distributed as follows: French, 80,765; Dutch, 70,950; Ger

mans, 57,010; Luxemburgers, 10,367; Russians, 7,491; British, 6,974; Austro-Hungarians, 5,927; Italians, 4,498; Swiss, 2,335, and 8,238 of other nationalities. Statistics of Belgian emigration show 13,492 in 1900; 14,752 in 1904; in 1908 these figures were more than doubled, namely, 32,294; in 1909 there were 38,190 and in 1912 a total of 35,775. The immigration of foreigners into Belgium, on the other hand, exceeded the emigration of the natives to other countries. The latest available figures are: in 1910, 44,950; in 1911, 41,062; and 42,980 in 1912. The majority of the population is Roman Catholic, but as no inquiries on the subject of religious belief are made in the census enumeration, there are no figures available to show the distribution of creeds. The government impartially subsidizes Roman Catholic, Protestant and Jewish places of worship by contributing to the stipends of ministers. So far back as 1831, when religious tolerance was still an almost unknown quantity in Europe, the Belgian Congress made freedom of conscience and religious equality fundamental parts of their Constitution. The Belgian population is the densest in Europe and is composed of two distinct races - Flemish, who are of German, and Walloons, who are of French extraction. The former, by far the more numerous, have their principal locality in Flanders; but also prevail throughout Antwerp, Limburg and part of Brabant. The latter are found chiefly in Hainaut, Liége, Namur and part of Luxemburg. The language of each corresponds with their origin the Flemings speaking a Germanic dialect and the Walloons a dialect, or rather a corruption, of French, with a considerable infusion of words and phrases from Spanish and other languages. This distinct mixture of races, and the repeated changes of masters to which they have been subjected, have necessarily been very unfavorable to the formation of a national character. Still, in some leading features, there is a remarkable uniformity in the population. Though the position of the country between France and Germany has made it the battlefield of Europe, the inhabitants show few warlike tendencies and are unwearied in pursuing arts of peace. The fact bears strong testimony to the patient endurance of the Belgian people, but does not, as the European War has shown, preclude the courage or the ability to fight when called on. French is the official language of Belgium and in general use among the educated classes. Of late years, however, patriotic feelings have acquired new strength; and one of its first manifestations has been an eager desire to cultivate the vernacular Flemish, which differs little from Dutch.

The

The population generally is industrious and apparently in comfortable circumstances. far larger proportion of it is rural; and though landed property is very much subdivided, the Belgians manage, by a happy combination of agricultural with other industrial employments, to derive from their little holdings all the necessaries and not a few of the comforts of life. It is not to be denied, however, that in some of the provinces, particularly in Flanders, population, in so far at least as it can be maintained by agricultural resources, had reached its limit and that a deficiency of other employment, particularly spinning and hand-loom