the same causes, in a great measure, are attributed the rhenmatisms which are general and the consumptions which are frequent among the common people. Wherever, in any place, from particular circumstances, the condition of the poor hus been rendered worse, these disorders, particularly the latter, have been observed to prevail with greater force." In these

observations Mr. Malthus lays the very foundation of the science of health. Health in Europe, he shows, is incompatible with high birth-rates, which cause over-crowding, consumption, and death.

Scotland, says Malthus, writing in 1806, is certainly still over-peopled, but not so much as it was a century ago, when it contained fewer inhabitants. Scotland in 1801, had 1,608,420 inhabitants, and in 1871, 3,360,018, so that its time of doubling has been nearly seventy years, or much slower than that of England and Wales.

With regard to Ireland, there is only one short paragraph in Malthus' tenth Chapter of Book Second upon that country. We give it in its entirety :-"The details of the population of Ireland are but little known. I shall only observe, therefore, that the extended use of potatoes has allowed of a very rapid increase of it during the last century (18th). But the cheapness of this nourishing root, and the small piece of ground which, under this cultivation, will in average years produce the food for a family, joined to the ignorance and barbarism of the people, which have prompted them to follow their inclinations with no other prospect than an immediate bare subsistence, have encouraged marriage to such a degree that the popula tion is pushed much beyond the industry and present resourcesof the country; and the consequence naturally is that the lower classes of people are in the most depressed and miserable state. The checks to the population are, of course, chiefly of the positive kind, and arise from the diseases occasioned by squalid poverty, by damp and wretched cabins, by bad and insufficient clothing, by the filth of their persons, and occasional want." Malthus here foresaw the famine of 1848, which, aided by emigration, reduced the Irish population from 8,175,124 in 1841 to 6,552,385 in 1851. Doubtless, as shown by Mr. J. S. Mill, Professor Laveleye, and other subsequent writers, the miserable condition of the Irish peasant is due mainly to the intolerable feudal laws of land tenure, which have been soviolently put an end to in our happiest of modern Europear States, France.

CHAPTER VII.

IN

N Volume II. of the "Essay on the Principle of Population" (edition 1806) there are to be found a number of most interesting remarks on the population question. Book II. contains chapters on the Fruitfulness of Marriage, on the Effects of Epidemics, on Registers of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, and on the General Deductions from the Preceding View of Society.

"There is no absolutely necessary connection," says Malthus, "between the average age of marriage and the average age of death. In a country the resources of which will allow of a rapid increase of population, the expectation of life or the average age of death may be extremely high, and yet the age of marriage may be very early; and the marriages, then, compared with the contemporary deaths of the registers, would, even after the correction for second and third marriages, be very much too great to represent the true proportion of the born living to marry."

At the commencement of this century, it appears from the transactions of the Society of Philadelphia, in a paper by Mr. Barton, entitled "Observations on the Probability of Life in the United States," that the proportion of marriages to births was as 1 to 41. As, however, this proportion was taken principally from towns, it is probable, according to Malthus, that the births given were too low, and that as many as five might be taken as an average for town and country. According to this author, the mortality at that date was about 1 in 45; and, if the population doubled in twenty-five years, the births would be 1 in 20 (50 per 1,000).

In England at the commencement of this century the proportion of marriages to births appears to have been about 100 to 350. But in those days Mr. Malthus calculated that the annual. marriages to the births in England amounted to about 1 in 4. In the East-end of London at the present day the writer has found that the average number of children to a marriage among the women of the poorer classes is about 7, whilst the annual births in England and Wales to the mar

riages are nearly as 4 to 1. In France the annual marriages are to the births as 1 to 3.

A writer in Mr. Malthus's day, Crome, observes that when the marriages of a country yield less than four births, the population is in a very precarious state; and he estimates the prolificness of marriages by the proportion of yearly births to marriages. If this had been true, the population of many countries of Europe would be at present in a precarious state, since in many, as in France, the proportion of marriages to births is much under 4 to 1.

"The preventive check," says Malthus, "is perhaps best measured by the smallness of the proportion of yearly births to the whole population. The proportion of yearly marriages to the population is only a just criterion in countries similarly circumstanced, but is incorrect where there is a difference in the prolificness of marriages or in the proportion of the population under the age of puberty, and in the rate of increase. If all the marriages of a country, be they few or many, take place young, and be consequently prolific, it is evident that to produce the same proportion of births a smaller number of marriages will be necessary, or, with the same proportion of marriages, a greater proportion will be produced.'

Curiously enough, in his day Malthus mentions that in France both the births and deaths were greater than they were in Sweden, although the proportion of marriages was then rather less in France. "And when," he adds, "in two countries compared, one of them has a much greater part of its population under the age of puberty than the other, it is evident that any general proportion of the yearly marriages to the whole population will not imply the same operation of the preventive check among those of a marriageable age."

One of the most interesting chapters in the second volume of Malthus' essay is that which relates to the rapid increase of births after the plagues. According to Sussmilch, very few countries had hitherto been exempt from plagues, which every now and then would sweep away one-fourth or one-third of their population. That writer calculated that above one-third of the people in Prussia were destroyed by the plague of 1711; and yet, notwithstanding this great diminution of the population, it appeared that the number of marriages in 1711 was very nearly double the average of the six years preceding the plague. Hence the proportion of births to deaths was prodigious-320 to 100-an excess of births as great, perhaps, as has ever been known in America. In the four years succeed

ing the plague the births were to the deaths in the proportion of above 22 to 10, which, calculating the mortality at 1 in 36, would double the population in 21 years.

"In contemplating," says Malthus, "the plagues and sickly seasons which occur in the tables of Sussmilch, after a period of rapid increase, it is impossible not to be struck with the idea that the number of inhabitants had, in these instances, exceeded the food and accommodation necessary to preserve them in health. The mass of the people would, upon this supposition, be obliged to live worse, and a greater number of them would be crowded together in one house; and these natural causes would evidently contribute to increase sickness, even though the country, absolutely considered, might not be crowded and populous. In a country even thinly inhabited, if an increase of population takes place before more food is. raised, and more houses are built, the inhabitants must be distressed for room and subsistence."

In Chapter xi. we have some general deductions from the preceding views of Society. Mr. Malthus there shows that the main cause of the slow growth of populations in Europe is insufficiency of supplies of food. No settlements, says our author, could have been worse managed than those of Spain, Mexico, Peru and Quito. Yet, under all their difficulties, these colonies made a quick increase in population. But the English North American Colonies added to the quantity of rich land they held in common with the Spanish and Portuguese settlements, a greater degree of liberty and equality. In Pennsylvania there was no right of primogeniture in Malthus' time: and in the provinces of New England the eldest son had only a double share. The consequence of these favourable circumstances united was a rapidity of increase almost without a parallel in history. Throughout all the northern provinces the population was found to double itself in 25 years. original number of persons which had settled in the four provinces of New England, in 1643, was 21,200. Afterwards it was calculated that more left them than went to them. In the year 1760 they were increased to half a million. They had, therefore, all along, doubled their numbers in 25 years. New Jersey the period of doubling appeared to be 22 years; and in Rhode island still less. In the back settlements, where the inhabitants applied themselves solely to agriculture, and luxury was not known, they were supposed to double their numbers in 15 years.

The

In

The population of the United States, says Malthus, writing

in 1806, according to the last Census, is 11,000,000. "We have no reason to believe that Great Britain is less populous at present, for the emigration of the small parent stock which produced these numbers. On the contrary, a certain amount of emigration is known to be favourable to the population of the mother country. Whatever was the original number of British emigrants which increased so fast in North America, let us ask. Why does not an equal number produce an equal increase in the same time in Great Britain? The obvious reason is the want of food; and that this want is the most efficient cause of the three immediate checks to population which have been observed to prevail in all societies, is evident, from the rapidity with which even old States recover the desolations of war, pestilence, famine, and the cou vulsions of nature. They are then for a short time placed a little in the condition of new colonies, and the effect is always answerable to what might be expected. If the industry of the inhabitants be not destroyed, subsistence will soon increase beyond the wants of the reduced numbers; and the invariable consequence will be, that population, which before perhaps was nearly stationary, will begin immediately to increase, and will continue its progress till the former population is recovered."

The decennial censuses of the United States during this century have been as follows, in round numbers :-In 1800, 5,305,000; in 1810, 7,239,000; in 1820, 9,638,000; in 1830, 12,866,000; in 1840, 17,069,000; in 1850, 23,193,000; in 1860, 31,443,000; in 1870, 38,558,000. If we compare the cypher of 1830-12,866,000-with that of 1800-5,305,000 -we see that the population of the States far more than doubled itself in the first thirty years of the century, making all due allowance for immigration, by the simple process of fecundity inherent in the human species.

Mr. Malthus mentions (chapter XI. p. 67), that in New Jersey "the proportion of births to deaths, in an average of seven years, ending 1743, was 300 to 100. In England and France, he says, at that time the highest average proportion could not be reckoned at more than 120 to 100." At this date, 1880, the proportion of births to deaths in France is as 111 is to 100, and in England it is as 152 is to 100, whereas in Dublin the deaths exceed the births. In New Zealand the births are to the deaths as 340 is to 100. There is nothing, he says, the least mysterious in this. The passion between the sexes has appeared in every age to be so nearly the same, that it may be considered, in algebraic language, as a given