534 The Population Question. [MAY, 



Comment upon this unanswerably document would be impertinent. 

 It might be supposed that Mr. Sadler had in this test alone abundantly 

 satisfied himself, and that he needed not to have pushed his inquiries far- 

 ther. But his ardent spirit .was not contented. He knew that our 

 English registers, to the disgrace of those to whom large sums of the 



Sublic money are disbursed for the preservation of such documents, are 

 eficient in many essential particulars. Those deficiencies, it is true, 

 might tell either way ; but he was resolved, by the addition of such 

 unentered births, marriages and deaths, as could be obtained through the 

 medium of official queries addressed to every parish in the kingdom, to 

 subject his proof to a still severer test. Here is the result : 



No. of Inhabitants to a square mile. No. of Births to 100 Marriages. 



From 50 to 100 427 



100 to 150 414 



150 to 200 406 



200 to 250 402 



250 to 300 392 



300 to 350 375 



500 and upwards 332 



The scale of fecundity again falls in proportion to the denseness of the 



population. But the indefatigable inquirer has yet another torture for 



the censuses of England, to see if they can be made to yield a solitary 



argument against him. 



No. of acres to each Inhabitant. No. of Baptisms to 100 Marriages. 



Under 1 227 



From Ito2 341 



2 to 3 348 



3 to 4 365 



4 to 5 370 



5 and upwards 380 



In every way then in which it is possible to test the population of 

 England, we find it prove to mathematical demonstration, the truth of 

 Mr. Sadler's great principle. Indeed so triumphant a series of proofs 

 was never displayed on any other question. If the phrenologists, or the 

 political economists, or the admirers of Mr. St. John Long, had such a 

 train of evidences to produce, we should never hear the end of their 

 braz en- trumpet-bio wing. 



Having shewn amply how the law of nature works its consequences in 

 England, it is sufficient to refer our readers to Mr. Sadler's work for the 

 proofs he derives from the censuses of the British Isles, some of the 

 counties in England, separately considered, France and Russia, Ireland, 

 the United States, &c. In each of these his principle is proved on 

 equally incontrovertible data, the operation of which in the above 

 instance will have afforded a sufficient example of its results in all. 



Fourth. This branch of the. inquiry leads to the establishment of the 

 important fact, that marriages are less prolific in proportion to the density 

 of the population on a given space. Thus, we find in crowded towns 

 that fecundity diminishes, by which mysterious provision of nature the 

 evils of excessive numbers are. always anticipated and prevented. The 

 following abstract presents the results of two tables the one giving the 

 prolificness of marriages in one hundred and five towns of England, 

 being the whole number of those contained in the population abstracts, 



