INCjriHV INTO TIIK l'( )Pr LATION OF CHINA. 663 



I''aiiiilics. 



icr.l. (;i\c(l popiilntio!! 10, o:}.?, 000 



ICCO. taxed poi^ilatioii li). OSS. 000 



KiTO, taxed population 19, SOC, 000 



1080. taxed iiopnlation 17.095,000 



ICOO. taxed p(.piilatioii_._ ^ 20,304,000 



1T(«i. taxed population 20.411.0(M» 



1710. taxed poi)ulati(>ii 23. :'.l 1.000 



ITl'o. taxed pojiidatiou 24. 720. 0(M» 



IT.'id. taxed population 2r>. 4S( ). 000 



111 till' case of tlu' ceustis ol" 17"20 we are told that there were, exclu- 

 sive of the taxed i)o[)iilatioii, ;)()!). r)4r) families free from taxation, 

 and 851,0.")*) families in the case of that of 1T;U). Parker notes that 

 "evidence clearly shows" (hut, as usual with him, he does not go to 

 the trouble of aiviiiii' any) " that the numbers given above must be 

 multiplied by six, and not by five, as was done by Amiot, in order to 

 obtain the number of individuals.'' Pending production of evidence, 

 I shall follow Father Amiot's views on this [)oint, and would add 2 

 l)er cent for the tax-free families, Avhich include officials, literati, the 

 army, etc. On this basis we find that the total j)oi)ulatioii of China 

 proper in l(>r)l, during the troublous times which accompanied the 

 establishment of Manchii supremacy, was about 55,000,000 — just 

 about the number we should have assumed it to be had we to deduct 

 it from the data supplied by history alone. From 1051 down to the 

 l^resent time the figures of the returns vary with such extraordinary 

 rai)idity, so unlike anything we have noted in the whole long list of 

 earlier Chinese enumerations, that one is inevitably brought to look 

 on them as fanciful and i)robably far remote from the ti'uth." 



In 171-J an imperial edict oi'dered that the iiumbei" of families 

 (i24,()'21,H3J ) given in the enumeration of the preceding year should 

 riMiiaiii the invarial)le basis for the assessment of the crown taxes, 

 and that all subsequent censuses should give the total number of 

 inhabitants. Nevertheless, it was only in 1741, after repeated orders 

 had been given by the Imperial Government, that a return was made 

 of the total population of China. According to it the population 

 was U;i,4I-_>,000. For 1748 Ave find in the Institutes of the Ta 

 Cli'ing dynasty (Ta Ch'ing Ilui-tien) a detailed census of the seven- 

 teen ])r()viiices — corresjjonding to the eighteen of the present day — 

 but again given by households. This census gave the total number 

 of households (hu) as 28,877,304, comprising 143,()21,400 individ- 

 uals, or about 4.8 persons to a household. To this number, Avhicli 



« De Guignes (Voyage a Pekiiif?, Vol. Ill, pp. 50-SG), after a study of the 

 Chinese census returns of 1743, 17(51, and 1794, conchuled tli.it they were exag- 

 gerated, and also that the figure five ado])ted hy the missionaries to ascertain 

 the number of persons in a family was too high hy half. He calculated tiie 



Iiopnlation of China iifoitei- in 17S'.) at ir)(i,(jO( ),(»()(! as a maxiimiiii. 



