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sented to their minds other than that of their own 

 little island, at once run away with the idea, that 

 India has a teeming- population, with which it is 

 sadly oppressed and over-burthened. That the con- 

 trary is the case that India is extremely under- 

 populated, and that the crying- want of the country 

 is a population in some degree proportionate to its 

 immense area, the vast tracts, the thousands of 

 square miles of rich, highly productive, and cultur- 

 able land, which are now lying 1 waste, for the simple 

 reason that there are no people to till them are a 

 sufficient proof. 



But to pursue the enquiry a little further, let us ex- 

 amine the question in greater detail. The number 

 of souls per square mile in Belgium is 413, in 

 Holland 271, in Great Britain 237, in France 

 177, in Prussia 159, in Austria 144. We are very 

 badly off in India for statistics of any kind. A 

 very great portion of the Country has never been 

 surveyed. Without any great fear, however, of 

 being over the mark, we may estimate the area of 

 British India, at not less than 1,000,000 square 

 miles, and taking the population at 135,000,000 it 

 will give only 135 souls per square mile.* Now 

 the produce of the soil of any country, only reaches 

 its maximum, when the pressure of population forces 

 cultivation up to the highest possible point ; and as 

 it is an axiom that each increase in productive 



* The total area of India, including native states, the parlia- 

 mentary return gives as 1,476,316 square miles. 







