+--------+-------+---------+-------+ | Years | Males | Females | Total | +--------+-------+---------+-------+ | 1869 | 5 | 2 | 7 | | 1870 | 13 | 6 | 19 | | 1871 | 23 | 5 | 28 | | 1872 | 35 | 11 | 46 | | 1873 | 17 | 4 | 21 | | 1874 | 25 | — | 25 | | 1875 | 14 | 3 | 17 | | 1876 | 15 | 4 | 19 | | 1877 | — | — | 12 | +--------+-------+---------+-------+ | Total | 147 | 35 | 194 | +--------+-------+---------+-------+
The official returns of the number of deaths from lightning, as given by the English Registrar-General, are admittedly incomplete. In Prussia, where the registration of the causes of death is most rigidly enforced by law, and, in consequence, is far more accurate than in England, there were one thousand and four persons reported as killed by lightning in the nine years from 1869 to 1877. According to the official report issued by Dr. Ernst Engel, Director of the Statistical Bureau of Berlin, the number of lives lost each year was as follows:—
+--------+-------+---------+-------+ | Years | Males | Females | Total | +--------+-------+---------+-------+ | 1869 | 47 | 32 | 79 | | 1870 | 59 | 43 | 102 | | 1871 | 56 | 47 | 103 | | 1872 | 50 | 35 | 85 | | 1873 | 61 | 50 | 111 | | 1874 | 58 | 49 | 107 | | 1875 | 92 | 48 | 140 | | 1876 | 59 | 47 | 106 | | 1877 | 105 | 66 | 171 | +--------+-------+---------+-------+ | Total | 587 | 417 | 1,004 | +--------+-------+---------+-------+
The population of Prussia is somewhat larger than that of England and Wales--25¾ millions against 24½ millions--but on the other hand, thunderstorms are less frequent there than with us. Altogether it will be rather under than over the mark to say that as many persons are killed by lightning in England as in Prussia, the loss amounting, on the average, to over one hundred every year.
Of the deaths by lightning in France, Mons. Boudin some years ago collected statistics which showed that during the thirty years beginning in 1834 and ending in 1863, two thousand and thirty-eight people were struck dead by lightning in that country. During the last ten years of this period, the deaths amounted to eight hundred and eighty, and of these only two hundred and forty-three were females. In connection with this it is a noticeable fact that when a lightning stroke falls upon a crowd, it almost invariably causes more fatalities among the men than the women.