The Republic of Costa Rica

by Gustavo Niederlein

	Births.			Males.	Females.	Deaths.
	Illegitimate.	Legitimate.	Total.			Males.	Females.	Total.
San José	179	428	607	}		247	209	456
Alajuela	82	290	372	}		117	115	232
Cartago	63	357	420	}		133	117	250
Heredia	13	76	89	} 825	795	85	92	177
Liberia	34	13	47	}		13	14	27
Puntarenas	35	15	50	}		44	35	79
Limon	28	7	35	}		38	24	62
Total	434	1,186	1,620	825	795	677	606	1,283

Deaths by Ages.

From 1 to 5 years	709
From 6 to 20 years	65
From 21 to 50 years	317
From 51 and upward	192
Total	1283

These data show in favor of births over deaths an increase of 337, of whom 148 were males and 189 females.

The causes of death in each 1000 cases were as follows:

Fever	220	Heart failure	31
Cholera infantum	112	Apoplexy and paralysis	81
Diarrhea	52	Indigestion	12
Dysentery and colic	77	Gastro-enteritis	15
Typhoid fever	26	Enteritis	28
Bronchitis and pneumonia	91	Inflammation	35
Phthisis	42	Cancer	16
Influenza	17	Blood-poison	17
Dropsy	31	Syphilis	5

In regard to social conditions, the population of Costa Rica was distributed in 1892, by percentages, as follows:

Province or Comarca.	Married.	Divorced.	Widowers.	Widows.	Single Male.	Single Female.
San José	27.52	0.38	0.89	2.98	33.77	34.46
Alajuela	28.71	0.11	0.87	3.17	34.16	32.98
Cartago	26.76	0.08	1.16	3.98	34.82	33.20
Heredia	28.33	0.07	1.06	3.22	32.94	34.38
Guanacaste	22.82	0.64	1.60	3.59	37.53	33.82
Puntarenas	18.17	0.30	1.17	3.51	40.07	36.78
Limon	5.05	0.16	0.39	0.70	69.18	24.52

With respect to instruction there were 28,208 individuals who could read, and 48,215 persons who could read and write, leaving 166,782 illiterates, or 68.58 per cent of the entire population who could not read or write.

It will be interesting for the economist to know the percentage of the population capable of reading, or writing and reading. It is as follows: