﻿rockhill] I in: POPULA I [ON OF CH i.na 317 



or about 23.9 per 1,000 inhabitants — by no means an excessive rate. 



The death-rale among infants resulting from the highly insani- 

 tary conditions in which the whole population, rich and poor, 

 throughout the Empire constantly lives, and also from female in- 

 fanticide, must be exceedingly high. This latter cause of infant 

 mortality is accountable for a considerably increased death-rate in 

 the Provinces of Kuang-tung, Fu-kien, Che-kiang, Shan-hsi, Kiang- 

 hsi, An-hni. and in most of the other provinces of die empire in a 

 lesser degree. 1 



Everything considered— especially the fact that in a very large 

 part of China the people live huddled together in towns and villages, 

 and that nowhere is any attempt ever made toward sanitation or the 

 prevention of the spread of contagious disease — it seems quite safe 

 to put the death-rate in China at 30 per 1,000 as a minimum. 



Ill 



Let us revert now to the figures given by the Chinese government 

 for the population at the various periods since 1741 and see whether 

 the annual rates of increase are at all reasonable. This examination 

 is distinctly disappointing; nothing less satisfactory could be con- 

 ceived. Between 1743 and 1783— during which time China enjoyed 

 extraordinary peace and prosperity, disturbed only by some uprisings 

 of aboriginal tribes in the mountainous regions of the west, and two 

 small rebellions, one in Shan-tung in 1777, the other in Shen-hsi in 



1781 no great famines or other natural calamities are recorded. 



Nevertheless, the annual rate of increase of the population (the 

 ennmerations being all presumably made in the same manner, with 

 the same classes excepted), which between 1743 and 1749 was 2.90 

 percent, fell from 1749 to 1757 to 0.91 percent, to rise between 1757 

 to 1 76 1 to 1.37 percent, falling again to 0.73 percent between 1761 

 and 1767 and to 0.57 percent from that date to 1771. The next 

 change is phenomenal : between 1771 and 1776 it was 5.0 percent, but 

 immediately after, between 1776 and 1780 it fell, without any known 

 reason, to 0.86 percent, to rise again between that date and 1783 to 



'See Journ. Nor. Ch. Br. Roy. Asiat. Sue. vol. xx, p. 25, et seq. New- 

 holme {Elcm. Vital Statistics. 130) says that infant mortality in Europe is 

 lowest in Ireland with 164.6 in every 1,000, and highest in Russia in Europe 

 with 422.9 in every 1,000. It must be at least this in China. In Japan, where 

 there exists the same desire as in China to have posterity, the average num- 

 ber of children to a marriage is about 3.5 ( Newsholme, op. cit., p. 70). I see 

 no reason to believe that the Chinese are more prolific. In the United States. 

 according to the census of 1900, the annual death-rate of the whites, where 

 accurately recorded, was about 17.8 per 1,000. 



