According to the returns furnished by the local registrars to the Registrar-General 942,819 births and 537,080 deaths were registered in England and Wales during the year 1902. The natural increase of population by excess of births over deaths was, therefore, 405,793, the average annual increase in the preceding 5 years having been 363,053. The birth rate was 28.6 per 1,000 of the population, which is 0.1 per 1,000 higher than the rate in 1901, but lower than that in any other year on record,

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... d compared with the average in the preceding ten years shows a decrease of 1.0 per 1,000. The death rate was 16.3 per 1,000, which is the lowest rate on record, the only previously-recorded rates below 17 per 1,000 having been 16.5 in 1894 and 16.9 in 1901, and as against the last decennial average it shows a decrease of 1.6 per 1,000. The "Sleeping Sickness." Departure of Commissioners for Uganda. Lieut.-Col. Bruce and Dr. Nabarro, the new commissioners who are being dispatched by the government and the Royal Society to study sleeping sickness in Uganda, will leave Eng¬ land on the 12th inst. The duration of their stay in Uganda will probably be not less than from 6 to 12 months. Colonel Bruce is the discoverer of the parasite in the tsetse-fly disease and also of Malta fever. He was in Ladysmith during the siege. Marriages.