were nearly double the burials there. In all the other counties, the deaths fell annually so much short of the births as to admit of that gradual increase of British population which its four national enumerations successively displayed. The average summary of all the counties was, from 1796 to 1800, four births to three deaths. From that time the nativities increased and the deaths lessened, though not in equal degree, nor without ebbs succeeding the flow. The five years preceding the last census exhibited the average result of fifty-one births to thirty-four burials. Sometimes the births diminished as the deaths decreased, but this was neither continued in the same county. nor frequent elsewhere. No settled ratio of that sort appeared in any ¶ Considered with respect to the whole community, the latter period of the last census presents pretty nearly the proportion of four burials to six births in our tughly-favoured, healthy, and prosperous country.**. The established course of nature has not produced, in other countries, any results contradictory to these which have thus appeared in our own; they vary everywhere; but always, like the births, within ascertainable limits, except in the rare pesulential visitations. In 1827 the general average of deaths in all France was in the proportion of nearly 1 in 40.tt It varied in its several burials; and between 1796 and 1800 the proportions were thirty-nine to thirty-seven-Rick. Pop., vol. i., p. 32. In Cambridge, from 1816 to 1820, the average births were 1 in 30 and the deaths 1 in 55. From 1796 to 1800 they stood as thirty-three to fortyfive, and from 1826 to 1830 as thirty-one to forty five.--Ib The births were 1 in 36, the deaths 1 in 48.-Ib. Between 1806 and 1810 the average rose to 1 in 32 baptisms and 1 in 40 burials. Between 1816 and 1820 the births fell back to 1 in 33 and the deaths lessened to 1 in 55. Between 1826 and 1830 the births lessened further to 1 in 34 and the deaths increased to 1 in 51,-Ib. As in Monmouth, from 1796 to 1800, baptisms 1 in 56, deaths 1 in 72.--Ib So 46 in the deaths has The relative numbers changed afterward to 45, 64; 46, 66; 45, 69.-Ib. Thus the proportion of 1 in 34 births occurs with the different rates of 1 in 46, 47, 49, 51, 54, and 56 of the deaths on the births in different counties 30, 33, and 34. if more connected with the 46; but that 34 in the births has the above Varieties in the deaths. The fifty-one births to thirty-four burials are as twenty-five and a half to seventeen, or twelve and three quarters to eight and a half. This Approaches to the relation of six to four. TheRevue Encyclopedique," calculating the rate of mortality in the different departments of France in 1827, found that its largest opera departments, like ours in our counties;* and in one the deaths exceeded the births. On the whole, they were to each other in the ratio of 1000 to 800, or five births to four deaths.‡ In Denmark in 1830 the ratio was 1 birth in 28, and 1 death in 39, and in these numbers nearly seven nativities to five departures. In the Netherlands, at that time, similar proportions appeared.|| In the Prussian provinces on the Rhine the ratio was nearly the favourable quantity of eight born to five that died. T In Mexico one of the greatest instances of annual mortality occurs. The deaths in 1825, in one of its provinces, were so unusually numerous as to be 1 in nearly 20; sweeping off, if they continued in that ratio, a whole generation in twenty years. ** In the kingdom of Prussia and duchy of Lithuania the protion was one in twenty-seven and three fifths in Finistere, and only one in fifty-three and a half in the Haute Pyrenees. For all France collectively, the average was 1 in 393.-Rev. Enc., vol. xxv., p. 580. *In 1826 it was 1 in 42 in the Doubs and I in 37 in the Lot departments; and in 1828 1 in 37.-Bull. Univ., 1831. In the department of L'Aisne the result was found to be, that the births in 1818 were one seventh more than the deaths.-Ib., 1826, p. 21. In all the departments but Finistere the births were greater than the deaths in these ratios. To 1000 births the deaths were In the department of Haute Vienne, during the twenty years from 1809 to 1829, all the births were 191,019 and the deaths 156,187, making an excess of births, in twenty years, of 34,832 to a population of 276,351; marriages 49,885.-Bull. Univ., 1831, p. 157. This was Finistere, in which there were more deaths than births in the proportion of 1027 to 1000.-Ib. In all France there were found to be 798 deaths to 1000 births.Rev. Enc. So in 1831 all the births in France were 986,709 and the deaths 802,948.-Annuaire Long., 1834. This is nearly five to four. The deaths were 1 in 39, the births 1 in 28 to 29, or 31,294 deaths and 43,266 births, which are nearly five to seven.-M. Porter's Paper to Statist. Soc. Athen., 1836, p. 226. || Bull. Univ., 1830, p. 232. ¶ Or 52,717 deaths to 79,241 births.-Bull. Univ., 1830, p. 435. **In 1825 the total population of Guanaxata, in Mexico, was 382,829. The marriages were 6976, the births 23,809, and the deaths 19,431. This extra mortality is thus accounted for. The Indians live in villages in their old manner, and do not avail themselves of the improvements in arts or agriculture. Diseases take them off by thousands.-J. Grandy's Mem. on Guanaxata. partions continually varied in a succession of sixty-four years. In fifteen years of it there were five births to three deaths; in twenty-four, about six to four; in the remainder, except an interval of pestilence, nearly seven to five.* The small parish of Leysin, in Switzerland, mentioned by Mr. Malthus, deserves our notice, as an instance where the law of population is so administered that for thirty years the births and deaths nearly balanced each other. This must be the ease in every age and country where the population is kept stationary. It was maintained in this state in this little com munsty6 The increase here was so gradual, that it would have taken more than the time which elapsed from Moses to Augastus to be doubled. I believe that all countries have been, at various periods and for a considerable series of years, in this state, and are so, and are never otherwise, but as it Bussmilch's Tables enable us to make the following approximating Tatos on the average, reckoning five years :-- "The average number of the births being, for a period of thirty years, simont accurately equal to the number of deaths, clearly proved that the habite of the people had not led thein to emigrate; and that the fsources of the parish for the support of the population had remained early stationary."-Maltb., ib., 402. Mr. Muret stated the particulars in his " Memoires Moc. Econ. de Berne" for 1766. It population in Muret's time was 400, and the births but little bove eight in a year. In ten years were 15 marriages, 88 baptisms, sod 82 deaths; making the births as one in forty-eight and three quar ters, and the deaths as one in forty-nine and three eighths-Muret's Me oires Boc. Econ. de Berne for 1766. Mir F. D'1vernois computes that its period of doubling would have been 2036 years; and adds, that this place still numbers only 447 inhab itante. He describes it as among the higher Alps. It is near the sum it of the habitable country. The prevailing cold is so rigorous that its Sababitants cannot raise either wheat, oats, or rye, nor any bread-corn, $290 the barley of Siberia-For. Quart. Rev., No. 26, p. 276. VOL. III-L suits both the local and general plans of Providence that they should advance, or decline, or continue in a level state. In Russia, as we have stated in preceding notes, both the deaths and their ratio fluctuated. In that year of war whose frosty nights in autumn were so fatal to Napoleon, the deaths in her empire were more than the births, as they commonly are in her capital.† For ten years, the deaths in her whole population were but two thirds of her births; of three born only two died. In 1833 her births were as six to five, or one sixth more than the deaths; and in the next year the excess of nativities again rose to the proportion of three to two. It varied also in her provinces. In some, and in some years, even so much that the born were twice the number of those who died. In others, a less multiplying rate appears ;** but as draughts to the army, and wanderers to the capital, and other emigrants take away a great many from the place of their baptism, the deaths on any local register do not mark their actual proportion to the births of that district.†† In other countries abroad we meet with diversities, yet always within the usual compass.‡‡ *This was in 1813. The births were 600,285, the deaths 603,025. † See before, page 78, note t. So in 1832 the births at St. Petersburg were 10,167, the deaths 15,197.-Ritchie's St. Pet. From 1812 to 1822, all her births were 15,456,195, and all her deaths in those years 10,085,395, which leaves a surplus of 5,370,800 births.Bull. Univ., 1827, p. 115. See before, p. 78. || Tb. In the bishopric of Woronesk in 1824 there were 81,675 births to 38,060 deaths.-Hertha, 1825. In nine eparchies in 1823 the births were 529,427, the deaths 277,875.-St. Peters. Zeitschrift. ** Thus, in the government of Perm, from 1819 to 1824, whose popula tion was 1.143,902, the births were as sixteen to ten deaths.-Bull. Univ., 1826, p. 136. Or four to two and a half. In the bishopric of Poltowa, 1824, there were 65,706 births and 47,561 deaths, or nearly thirteen to nine and two fifths, or about four and one third to three and one third. -Hertha, 1825. tt From these causes I consider the deaths in the state of New-York and in the district of Quebec not to represent the true proportion of the deaths of those who are born in these places, because so many leave them to settle in the uncleared regions, where they assist to form new towns and states. Their numbers were-New-York in 1824, births 60,383, deaths 22,544.-Nat. Gazette, Feb., 1826. Quebec, 1794 to 1821, births 112,009, burials 54,534.-Bouchette, vol. i., p. 356. Thus in Baden in 1827 the rate was 1 in 411.-Bull. Univ., 1831, p. 49. At Montaux, in the Pays de Vaud, on the average of six years, 1826-31, the births were 624 to 444 deaths in a population of 2833, or six and a quarter to four and four tenths, making an annual increase of 1 in LETTER XIV, Limitations of Population produced by the ordinary Laws of DeathStatement of these as they occur in England and in several other Cuntries, MY DEAR SON, Having thus surveyed the operations of death in various parts of the world, so as to be enabled to form a just conception of their usual results, let us make a few reflections on the facts and laws which we have been contemplating, We see that the laws of death vary their effects as much as those of birth. There is nothing like a fixed standard, a uniform ratio, a one overruling law in either. Both the rate of deaths to births, and the proportion of the dying to the num ber of the existing population, are continually varying. They differ in every country in some degree, and in the same country at successive periods, and are not alike in every part of the same nation. These diversities show that the agency of death is governed by many laws and by no single force; yet here also, as in the births, all these variations are circumscribed by limits which, in the habitual and established order of things, are not overpassed, unless the Divine plan and will is that the particular population shall be extinguished or attenuated into a comparative nothingness. But even such debilitations are never produced by the usual course of births and deaths. They always arise from the sudden and temporary introduction of violent agents, either natural or hunian. Pestilence, famine, earthquakes, and inundations are the nat ural assailants which occur at times, in superordinary visitations, and wars of extermination are the human means by which depopulation, in particular cases, has been allowed to 152 only - D'Ivernois, Bib, Un, Geneva. In the Pays de Vaud in 1825 the births were 4974, the deaths 3310, which was as five to three and one Bull, Univ., 1926, p. 138. In the Netherlands the proportion was 1 in 44 Quetetet In Wilewin, 1924, the births were 100,143, deaths 68,039, -Bull Univ. 51. Nearly 5 t) 3). At Palermo, in eity, 1 in 31 frora 1900 to 1915, and 1 in 33 in the ten years following-lb., 1927, p. 126, |