POPULATION-POOR-LAWSLIFE-ASSURANCE. 



the very moderate increase of inhabitants returned 

 by each successive census. In many countries it 

 is an old standing custom that a girl should not 

 marry until she spin and weave for herself a 

 sufficient trousseau. In Norway, a young man 

 rarely marries until he can purchase or succeed to 

 the ownership or the occupancy of a cottage-farm ; 

 and the marriage of such as are in receipt of poor- 

 relief is prohibited. In Germany, France, and 

 other continental states, the law of conscription or 

 military service in the regular army or in the 

 militia, is a very prevalent preventive of marriage 

 up to the age of twenty-five ; and in some parts of 

 Germany, marriage is prohibited till the contract- 

 ing parties can prove before a magistrate their 

 ability to maintain a family. In England, during 

 the last century, the difficulty of obtaining cottage 

 accommodation checked the increase of the rural 

 population ; and the same retarding cause is 

 observable in many parts of Scotland. In all 

 countries, the frequency of marriage varies year 

 by year with the prosperity or adversity of the 

 time. When profits are high, marriages multiply ; 

 when trade is dull, they fall off. The periodical 

 returns of the registrars of births, marriages, 

 and deaths furnish much instructive information 

 respecting the effects of periods of industrial 

 adversity in restricting population. 



It is true that the capabilities of our colonies 

 and other countries for the absorption of our 

 superabundant population are still great, but no 

 reflecting man will pronounce them to be un- 

 limited ; and although it may not be in our day, 

 we cannot help looking forward to a time when all 

 the vacant spaces available for the abode and sus- 

 tenance of man of the higher races, at least 

 will be occupied as densely as the oldest states 

 of Europe. In the meantime, when we consider 

 that, although many people readily emigrate, it is 

 against the fixed disposition of others to leave 

 their mother-country; that the development of 

 manufacture and trade is fitful and fluctuating in 

 its nature, rapid at one moment, subject to fre- 

 quent checks, capricious in its seat, ever changing 

 in its modes ; especially when we consider how 

 inconsistent it is with past experience that our 

 trade should increase for ever with the gigantic 

 strides of the last hundred years, we cannot but 

 deplore the heedlessness with which the precepts 

 of Malthus are too frequently regarded. 



The stationary condition of a people is not 

 necessarily one of excessive hardship, and is not 

 necessarily accompanied with excessive mortality. 

 True, if a people multiply beyond the means of 

 subsistence, and can neither find room for its 

 surplus population by increased trade nor by 

 emigration, mortality is in that case the only 

 check ; and generally the wretchedness and igno- 

 rance accompanying such a state are so great, 

 that marriage is resorted to as the only solace 

 of life thus aggravating the evil, and reducing 

 man to the level of the lower animals. But the 

 prevalence of moral restraint implies no such 

 hardships and no such degradation. Instead of 

 the early solace of marriage, people learn to prize 

 more the homes of their own youth, residing 

 longer with their parents, and only leaving these 

 when they have the prospect of a home of their 

 own, which in comfort and respectability shall 

 not fall beneath that to which they were born. 

 In such a state, the family ties are all more 



lasting ; the children are fewer, and receive more 

 justice in their upbringing, and a larger and 

 more lasting share of their parents' affections; 

 brothers and sisters need not part in youth to 

 push their livelihood, it may be, in different 

 quarters of the globe. The proportion ultimately 

 entering on marriage need not be much dimin- 

 ished ; and while waiting till such a step is 

 justified by their prospects, they may have many 

 social and domestic enjoyments to which they 

 would otherwise be strangers, as in Switzerland 

 and other parts of Europe, where the want and 

 misery so common in this country, arising from 

 the frequency of improvident marriages, are com- 

 paratively unknown. 



POOR-LAWS. 



In all stages of society, there has existed a 

 class emphatically termed the Poor, composed of 

 persons who, but for the charity of their neigh- 

 bours, would be nearly or totally destitute, being 

 themselves unable, or all but unable, to supply 

 their own wants. It is easy to see how this 

 has been and must be ; for, from accidents in 

 the operation of the natural laws presiding over 

 the birth of individuals, some come into the 

 world without the usual gifts of body and mind 

 required for obtaining a sufficient subsistence; 

 the accidents of life deprive others of the use of 

 their full powers ; many reach an infirm old age 

 without having laid up a store to help them over 

 it ; the consequences of vice and error of all 

 those countless temptations which beset human 

 nature, and from which no one is altogether safe 

 leave many in a helpless state ; finally, in the 

 imperfection of all political institutions, there are 

 circumstances which press severely upon classes 

 and persons, tending to make their own efforts 

 for their subsistence insufficient. The operation 

 of accidents upon one class of parents, and the 

 vices and neglect of others, likewise leave many 

 young and helpless children in a state in which 

 they would be destitute but for the aid of neigh- 

 bours. All of these causes being inherent in 

 human nature and in society, we may be assured 

 that ' the poor we shall have with us always,' 

 however it may be possible, by judicious and 

 humane efforts, to keep their numbers within 

 comparatively moderate bounds. 



In an early state of society, the relief of the 

 poor is left to the operation of benevolence 

 amongst individuals ; and the destitute are either 

 succoured by those locally near them, or go forth 

 to beg relief in a wider circle. Generally, the 

 efficacy of benevolence for this end is the greater, 

 in consequence of the succour of the poor being 

 set forth as a duty in almost all religions. In 

 addition to occasional and particular acts of 

 charity, donations are made and legacies left 

 for the purpose of affording a more or less regular 

 and systematic relief within certain bounds. As 

 society, however, advances, it is found that the 

 charity of individuals is either an insufficient 

 means of succouring the poor, or is attended with 

 certain inconveniences. A relief by benevolence 

 is found to be oppressive to those who have kind 

 feelings, while the niggardly and ungenerous 

 escape. A dense and highly artificial state of 

 society rendering it impossible to keep watch 



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