General deductions from the

than usual, must always precede and accompany its appearance; that is, from the time of its last visit, the average number of children will be increasing, the people will, in consequence, be growing poorer, and the houses will be more crowded till another visit removes this superabundant population.

In all these cases, how little soever force we may be disposed to attribute to the effects of the principle of population in the actual production of disorders, we cannot avoid allowing their force as predisposing causes to the reception of contagion, and as giving very great additional force to the extensiveness and fatality of its ravages.

It is observed by Dr. Short that a severe mortal epidemic is generally succeeded by an uncommon healthiness, from the late distemper having carried off most of the declining wornout constitutions.' It is probable, also, that another cause of it may be the greater plenty of room and food, and the consequently meliorated condition of the lower classes of the people. Sometimes, according to Dr. Short, a very fruitful year is followed by a very mortal and sickly one, and mortal ones often

'Hist. of Air, Seasons, &c. vol. ii. p. 344.

preceding view of Society.

succeeded by very fruitful, as though nature sought either to prevent or quickly repair the loss by death. In general the next year, after sickly and mortal ones, is prolific in proportion to the breeders left.'

This last effect we have seen most strikingly exemplified in the table for Prussia and Lithuania.* And from this and other tables of Sussmilch it also appears, that when the increasing produce of a country, and the increasing demand for labor, so far meliorate the condition of the laborer, as greatly to encourage marriage, the custom of early marriages is generally continued till the population has gone beyond the increased produce, and sickly seasons appear to be the natural and necessary consequence. The continental registers exhibit many instances of rapid increase, interrupted in this manner by mortal diseases, and the inference seems to be, that those countries where subsistence is increasing sufficiently to encourage population, but not to answer all its demands, will be more subject to periodical epidemics than those where the increase of population is more nearly accommodated to the average produce.

General deductions from the

The converse of this will of course be true. In those countries which are subject to periodical sicknesses, the increase of population, or the excess of births above the deaths, will be greater in the intervals of these periods than is usual in countries not so much subject to these diseases. If Turkey and Egypt have been nearly stationary in their average population for the last century, in the intervals of their periodical plagues, the births must have exceeded the deaths in a much greater proportion than in such countries as France and England.

It is for these reasons that no estimates of future population or depopulation, formed from any existing rate of increase or decrease, can be depended upon. Sir William Petty calculated that in the year 1800 the city of London would contain five millions three hundred and fifty nine thousand' inhabitants, instead of which it does not now contain a fifth part of that number. And Mr. Eton has lately prophesied the extinction of the population of the Turkish empire in another century; an event ⚫ which will, as certainly, fail of taking place. If

1 Political Arithmetic, p. 17.

2 Survey of the Turkish Empire, c. vii. P. 281.

preceding view of Society.

America were to continue increasing at the same rate as at present, for the next 150 years, her population would exceed the population of China; but though prophecies are dangerous I will venture to say, that such an increase will not take place in that time, though it may perhaps in five or six hundred years.

Europe was, without doubt, formerly more subject to plagues and wasting epidemics than at present, and this will account, in great measure, for the greater proportion of births to deaths in former times, mentioned by many authors, as it has always been a common practice to estimate these proportions from too short periods, and generally to reject the years of plague as accidental.

4

The highest average proportion of births to deaths in England may be considered as about 12 to 10, or 120 to 100. The proportion in France for ten years, ending in 1780, was about 115 to 100. Though these proportions have undoubtedly varied at different periods during the last century, yet we have reason to think that they have not varied in any very considerable degree;

1

'Necker de l'Administration des Finances, tom. i. c. ix. p. 225.

General deductions from the

and it will appear therefore, that the population of France and England has accommodated itself more nearly to the average produce of each country than many other states. The operation of the preventive check, wars, the silent though certain destruction of life in large towns and manufactories, and the close habitations and insufficient food of many of the poor, prevent population from outrunning the means of subsistence; and if I may use an expression, which certainly at first appears strange, supersede the necessity of great and ravaging epidemics to destroy what is redundant. If a wasting plague were to sweep off two millions in England, and six millions in France, it cannot be doubted that after the inhabitants had recovered from the dreadful shock, the proportion of births to deaths would rise much above the usual average in either country during the last century.1

In New Jersey the proportion of births to deaths on an average of 7 years, ending 1743, was 300 to 100. In France and England the highest average proportion cannot be reckoned at more than

1 This remark has been, to a certain degree, verified of late in France, by the increase of births which has taken place since the revolution.