duals in the prime of life. Many of these, doubtless, are unmarried; but many are married; and thither they go to better their condition, or to find employment for their children. Now, does the Reviewer, asks Mr Sadler, write in English, and not know that there are vast numbers of such settlers, who annually proceed to Lancashire? Ignorant as he is, how should he have known that in respect of the two very divisions in question, their rate of increase during ten years, from 1811 and 1821, proves the fact? For the Hundred of Almondness has increased 26 per cent during that term, and that of Leyland above 21 per cent; so that the increase on both is above 24 per cent in ten years, or about half as much again as that which was taking place in the kingdom at large during the same period! Yet Mr Sadler has ascertained that there is a much smaller proportion of marriages celebrated in these two hundreds, than there is, on the average, in the whole kingdom. Why? Because, obviously, a considerable portion of the increase is made up of the constant accessions of those who are already married. Is not, then, a difference of about four per cent in the prolificness of Leyland, for instance, compared with that of the four English counties the Reviewer refers to, most satisfactorily accounted for? Nor dare he to deny it. For the Reviewer himself has accounted for differences, in some cases amounting to about 100 per cent, in the proportion of the children in America to the prolific females, to the same cause-emigration. Will he swallow a camel, and boggle at a gnat ?-the body of an elephant, and choke upon the tail?

Mr Sadler has given what the Reviewer calls "a long table of all the towns of England." It, he says, "is alone sufficient to upset the whole theory." Hear him. "We find that the fecundity in towns of fewer than 3000 inhabitants is actually much greater than the average fecundity of the kingdom, and that the fecundity in towns of between 3000 and 4000, is at least as great as the average fecundity of the kingdom. The average fecundity of a marriage in towns of fewer than 3000 inhabitants is

VOL. XXIX. NO. CLXXVII.

about four; in towns of between 3000 and 4000 inhabitants, it is 3.60. Now, the average fecundity of England, when it contained only 160 inhabitants to a square mile, and when, therefore, according to the new law of population, the fecundity must have been greater than it now is, was, according to Mr Sadler, 3.66 to a marriage. To proceed:_the fecundity of a marriage in the English towns of between 3000 and 4000 is stated at 3.56. But when we turn to Mr Sadler's table of the counties, we find the fecundity of a marriage in Warwickshire and Staffordshire rated at only 3.48; and in Lancashire and Surrey at only 3.41. These facts disprove Mr Sadler's principle; and the fact on which he lays so much stress, that the fecundity is less in the great towns than in the small towns, does not tend in any degree to prove his principle."

Again we hear the Bantam crowing. He ceases his scraugh—and says that the fact of the fecundity of Manchester being less than the fecundity of Sandwich or Guildford, is a circumstance that has nothing to do with Mr Sadler's theory; but that the fecundity of Sandwich is greater than the average fecundity of Kent -that the fecundity of Guildford is greater than the average fecundity of Surrey-as from Mr Sadler's own tables appears to be the case-these are facts, he says, utterly inconsistent with his theory. We say they are not.

The statistical account of all the places mentioned by the Reviewer in this triumphant passage is thoroughly known to Mr Sadler. The Reviewer knows no more of it than if they were in the moon. All he knows is what Mr Sadler has told him in his tables, about the mere numbers of their population. And did the infatuated quibbler never for a moment stop to consider, whether it was likely or not that the man who constructed the tables should know how they bore upon his own theory? Did no suspicion ever enter his mind that, in all this botheration of his about tables, he might flounder into a trapdoor in the floor, and break his neck? In the first place, then, concerning the very first town he mentions, Sandwich, the census remarks, that part of its liberties lie in the adjacent

2 D

hundreds, and are entered among them, a fact which of itself divests the computation of all certainty. Secondly, as to Guildford, the other instance, the same census states, that its registers include those of three Dissenting congregations, the only ones inserted in the returns of the whole county, with the exception of that of a small body of Quakers, which, as including the marriages also of that denomination, does not at all affect the proportion. So ignorant is the Reviewer of the very census he selects for his purpose! Indeed, he will not learn, let Mr Sadler din it into his ears ever so often, that there are frequently such variations in the ecclesiastical jurisdictions, that in some cases they leave a town without a single marriage-as in the case of Macclesfield.

But, thirdly, Mr Sadler flings these answers from him, in the carelessness of a man provided with other irresistible proofs of the ignorance of his antagonist, and proceeds by a more simple and decisive method to dispose of the entire objection. He leaves the Reviewer in the condition of a braggadocio, who, having called upon a crowd to behold in what grand style he would run you through the body, finds his own weapon twitched out of his hand and over his head, and yours beating a tattoo on his skull, which rings like an alarm-bell all round the neighbourhood. "That the fecundity of Guildford is greater than the average fecundity of Surrey-as from his own tables appears to be the case-these are facts utterly inconsistent with his theory." So has said the Reviewer -believing the population of Surrey to be rural in the extreme, and to be sprinkled over hill and plain in pretty little single cottages, fitter themes for Poetry than Political Economy. This assertion, Mr Sadler rightly represents as the climax of absurdity. In the last census, Surrey numbered 398,658 inhabitants, and to say not a word of the other towns in the county, above two hundred thousand of these are within the bills of mortality. Pray be so good as to inform us and yourself, good Master Lieutenant, how it is utterly inconsistent with Mr Sadler's principle, that the fecundity of Guildford, which numbers about 3000 inhabitants, should

be greater than the average fecundity of Surrey, made up, as the bulk of the population is, of the inhabitants of some of the worst parts of the metropolis? And, pray be so good as to inform us and yourself, good Master Lieutenant, after you have drawn in your breath on having answered the above query, why the fecundity of a given number of marriages in the clean little rural towns you allude to, while in the act, as you suppose, of demolishing Mr Sadler's principle, should not, according to that principle, be somewhat higher than that of an equal number, half-taken from the heart of Birmingham or Manchester, and half from the populous districts by which they are surrounded? Why should you stare like a stuck pig, or make mouths like a monkey at Mr Sadler, on being told by that gentleman that the average fecundity in towns of fewer than 3000 inhabitants is about four, or towns of between 4000 and 5000, 3.66 to a marriage, while that of a marriage in Warwickshire and Staffordshire-where you think according to his principles it should be greater-is somewhat less-being 3.48-in Lancashire and Surrey but 3.41? Surrey is settled. Well, then, with respect to Warwickshire. Do you not know that in Warwickshire, far above half the population is comprised in large towns? On the top of the "cheap and nasty," did you never pass through Birmingham ? Soho! Soho!-As to Staffordshire, besides the large and populous towns in its iron districts, situated so close together as almost to form, for considerable distances, a continuous street-heard you never of the potteries, a great population recently accumulated, not included, indeed, in the towns distinctly recorded in the censuses, but vastly exceeding in its condensation that found in the places to which you allude? What puzzles you with Lancashire? Don't you know that one fourth of the entire population is made up of the inhabitants of two only of the towns of that county? And that far above half of it is contained in towns, compared with which, those you refer to are villages? Nay, even the very hamlets of the manufacturing parts of Lancashire are often more populous. So you perceive, silly sir, that when

PERHAPS the Reviewer, whose total ignorance of his own country has been exposed in the preceding Chapter, is more at home in Prussia, or the Netherlands, or America-countries into which he follows Mr Sadler, to smash his principle there toothat is, to fling plate after plate of cracked crockery against the walls of achurch, with the savage purpose of reducing the whole fabric to ruins.

He fixes upon a table regarding Prussia, which, of course, as usual, "completely disproves Mr Sadler's whole principle." Such is the grim look of this table, that he is at first loath to approach it. "We are sorry," quoth he," to disturb Mr Sadler's complacency." But this amiable weakness-this Christian repugnance to the infliction of mental pain-by an effort of stoical magnanimity he conquers-and forthwith, to the disturbance of Mr Sadler's complacency, like a giant refreshed with wine, doth he, as we said before,

"Insupportably his foot advance." But something catches his toe-he stumbles and trips-and Mr Sadler, sorry to have even thus far had "his complacency disturbed," comes across the nape of his neck with his critical cane-almost like the very Crutch-and lo! the Reviewer on the ground, for the fortieth time at least -for no one of the most unfortunate among the unfortunate youths of whom we read in the annual registers of many lands, ever in so short a time experienced as many ups-anddowns-to say nothing of the rubsof life.

From the table in question, regarding Prussia, it appears, that at more than one period (1754-1784) when collections of the facts required were made, those facts are found to corroborate Mr Sadler's principle. But Mr Sadler plainly intimated that

the later document was the more complete and correct. Indeed the table of the date 1754, is very imperfect. But Mr Sadler gives two others

of the same date, 1784-one drawn up by Baumaunn, the other by Basching-which also vary considerably; and because they did so, Mr Sadler inserted them all in his work

for though never dreaming, he tells us, of their critical accuracy, more especially of the correctness of the first one, still he found they were equally confirmatory of his principle, though taken at two different periods, and by three different individuals. But the Reviewer appeals exclusively to the document notoriously and grossly defective, and then exclaims that it is perfectly clear, that Mr Sadler's principle is erroneous. He then prates about the Seven Years' War-the 1754, and the 1784-of which Mr Sadler shews that he knows nothing, except a small portion of misunderstanding, picked out of a table given as defective, but which, though told to the contrary, little Obstinacy would persist in quoting as complete.

But Mr Sadler, no way "sorry to disturb his complacency," does not suffer the Reviewer to continue chuckling over the said table-with his legs under the mahogany-and as he waxeth pot-valiant, prating of the Seven Years' War. The documents now referred to, when properly arranged, and they were properly arranged, though our wiseacre could not see how, indicated the truth of Mr Sadler's theory-and he never said they did more-they tended to shew that the prolificness of human beings, however estimated, varied in Prussia, at these different periods, inversely to the condensation of the population. But since the publication of Mr Sadler's work, he has seen another census of Prussia, namely, that of the

year 1827, in the Bulletin Universel. See how it corroborates the principle. In those provinces of Prussia where there are less than 2000 inhabitants to the "mille carré," the births to 100 marriages were 491-where there are from 2000 to 4000 on the same space, the proportion lessened to 452; where there are from 4000 to 6000 inhabitants on the same space, it sunk to 443; while in the capital the proportion was 371 only.

But farther. Between the years 1784 and 1827, the population of Prussia has considerably increased. In 1784, there were in Prussia 44,679 marriages, and 209,819 births; or a proportion of very near 470 births to every 100 marriages. In 1827, however, the marriages were 106,270, and the births 490,660; or 461 births to 100 marriages, shewing that in Prussia, as elsewhere, the prolificness of marriages diminishes as the population condensates.

But finally, the population of Prussia, within the ten years ending with 1828, had increased about two millions. Yes, good Master Lieutenant, it had; and as we believe there were some wars, not long before that period, in which Prussia was not allowed to stand altogether aloof, you may perhaps ask Mr Sadler how this increase is reconcilable with his theory, just as you asked him, a little while ago, very foolishly we fear, to look at the increase of the Prussian population during the long peace which followed the Seven Years' War, than which you say no fact is better ascertained in history, and which, we are sure, Mr Sadler never felt the slightest intention to doubt or deny-the good old worthy and well-ascertained fact being of the most harmless description. The population of Prussia, then, within the ten years aforesaid, has increased, Mr Sadler tells us, about two millions. But in what proportions? Taking periods of three years each, and commencing with 1819-from that year to 1822, the increase was 6 per cent; from 1822 to 1825, it was five per cent; from 1825 to 1828 it was 3 per cent: therefore the annual increase has been regularly diminishing, though the country has been all the while rapidly advancing in prosperity, and

receiving annually, according to Malte-Brun, a vast accession of inhabitants by emigration.

The Reviewer has not made much of his motion to Prussia. But he is off to the Netherlands-and so is Mr Sadler-and so is Christopher North.

"It is scarcely necessary," says the Reviewer," to say any thing about the censuses of the Netherlands, as Mr Sadler himself confesses that there is some difficulty in reconciling them with his theory, and helps out his awkward explanation by supposing, quite gratuitously, as it seems to us, that the official documents are inaccurate." To this piece of impertinence, Mr Sadler thus gives the squabash. "As it was scarcely necessary to say any thing about the censuses of the Netherlands, it is a pity that what has been said is again mere misrepresentation. What he says about my supposition being gratuitous, is gratuitously false. The fact is as well known as that there are censuses of the Netherlands in existence; and moreover, I refer the Reviewer, for my quite gratuitous' supposition, to M. Quetelet, whom, had he understood the subject on which he has ventured to write, he would have known to be the great authority on this branch of the statistics of the Pays-Bas."

And what truth may there be in the Reviewer's other assertion," that Mr Sadler himself confesses that there is some difficulty in reconciling the censuses of the Netherlands with his theory?" Why it is as "gratuitously false" as Mr Sadler has declared the other to be; for Mr Sadler, having examined and faithfully presented us with the striking proofs which they give of the truth of his theory, so far from "confessing that he had some difficulty in reconciling them with it," says, "these, then, are the results deduced from examination of the censuses of the kingdom of the Netherlands, which superficial observers have observed negative the principle I have examined; on the contrary, they establish a species of the very objections which have been proof in its favour, founded even on urged against it, exhibiting the law of population accomplishing, with equal certainty, its ultimate designs, when the circumstances under which

it operates are the most varied, and so adjusting them into a series of minute and constant adaptations, as still to regulate the increase of human beings by the space they have to possess, and the means provided for their sustentation."

Mr Sadler, then, has said and shewn, that the Reviewer went to the Netherlands for no other purpose, at least he has not attempted to effect any other, than to tell two gratuitous falsehoods.

Let us now accompany him to America-to the United States.

"The argument which Mr Sadler has drawn from the United States, will detain us but for a very short time. He has not told us-perhaps he had not the means of telling us-what proportion the number of births, in different parts of that country, bears to the number of marriages. He shews, that in the thinly peopled States, the number of children bears a greater proportion to the number of grown-up people, than in the old States; and this, he conceives, is a sufficient proof that the condensation of the population is unfavourable to fecundity. We deny the inference altogether. Nothing can be more obvious than the explanation of the phenomenon. The back settlements are, for the most part, peopled by emigration from the old States, and emigrants are almost always breeders.'

Let us see how Mr Sadler smashes this basket of brittle ware.

First, why should the argument drawn from the United States, detain the Reviewer but a short time? Mr Sadler has devoted several hundred pages of his work to America, and given numerous tables. Is that large part of his work good or badstrong or weak-true or false? A glorious opportunity does it affordif bad, weak, and false-for the Reviewer to settle Mr Sadler; but he saw that it is good-strongand true-and therefore, he could waste page after page of puerile, yea "maist bairnly' botheration about mere words, shying things and is in a hurry to be off-" the United States will detain us but a very short time"-and during that very short time, why he keeps shut eyes and ears, and on his return home, begins verifying his experi

ence, by reference to some para'graphs in pamphlets, about the back settlements.

Secondly, Mr Sadler is in no such hurry to quit the United States-nor are we-nor-gentle reader-we hope are you; for Mr Sadler, having proved, by the direct evidence of the registers of the births and marriages of every country in Europe which has furnished these facts, that the prolificness of human beings, under similar circumstances, varies inversely as their condensation, proceeds, in his Great Work, to deduce the same important principle from the statistics of America. “But why not from the registers of the births and marriages here too?" The Reviewer, with his usual candour, slyly says, "Mr Sadler has not told usperhaps he had not the means of telling us.” "I had not the means of telling you," replies Mr Sadler"but for a reason of which, from your ignorance of the subject, which may be some apology for your mode of speech, you do not seem to be aware-namely, because no such lists exist."

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Thirdly, the Reviewer, in the passage quoted from him, and now undergoing the process, not of gradual decay, but sudden demolition, says "that Mr Sadler merely shews, that in the thinly peopled States, the number of children bears a greater proportion to the number of grown-up people than in the old States; and this, Mr Sadler conceives, is a sufficient proof that the condensation of the population is unfavourable to fecundity.' This," replies Mr Sadler, " is also, I regret to say, a wilful misrepresentation. I say nothing of grown-up people' as such-and the Reviewer again misstates my argument, for the express purpose of concealing it from those of his readers whom he hopes, by a tissue of such falsifications as these, to prevent from reading it for themselves." But read it will be-in good time-by many thousands-in the original Work-meanwhile, what it is, shall shortly be stated in Maga.

Fourthly, then, Mr Sadler states his own proposition-which the Reviewer has basely misstated—thus. The proportion of children under ten, to the females between sixteen and forty-five-or in other words