mals that consume the food of man in this coun- 

 try, may hence see how ill-founded are their re- 

 grets and apprehensions. . Were every useless 

 horse sent out of the kingdom, the number of 

 those useful diminished as far as possible, and 

 were all fed in the most frugal manner, the 

 plenty of the people would no doubt be in the 

 mean time increased ; but the population 

 quickly augmenting, (as well as produce dimi- 

 nishing in various ways, from so absurd a mea- 

 sure,) the people would soon arrive at the same 

 point of relation to the means of support, and 

 their comforts would remain unaltered. All 

 the advantage would be an actual increase of 

 numbers even in common years. But if a scar- 

 city were to occur, the situation of the people 

 would be much worse. There would be no 

 produce raised be}^ond what was annually con 

 sumed by man ; any retrenchment from the 

 usual moderate supply would occasion the se- 

 verest suffering ; and deficiency to any consi- 

 derable amount would create absolute famine. 

 Accordingly, it is in China, where the inferior 

 animals are extremely few in proportion to 

 man, that this dreadful calamity most fre- 

 quently occurs. In Great Britain, where the 

 number of the inferior animals in proportion to 

 man is unusually large, scarcity has proba- 



