POPULATION. 



sion being made, a milky fluid will issue 

 out, which being- of a glutinous nature, 

 will adhere to the bottom of the incision; 

 but some are so luxuriant, that it will 

 drop from the head. The next day, if 

 the weather should be fine, the opium 

 will be of a greyish substance, and then 

 maybe scraped off with the edge of a 

 knife, and in a day or two it will be of a 

 proper consistence to make into a mass, 

 and to be put in pots. The white poppy 

 is commonly considered as the officinal 

 plant, but any of the varieties may be em- 

 ployed indiscriminately, since no differ- 

 ence is discovered in their sensible qua- 

 lities or effects. 



The heads, or capsules, being boiled in 

 water, impart a narcotic juice. The liquor, 

 strongly pressed out, suffered to settle, 

 clarified with whites of eggs, and evapo- 

 rated to a due consistence, yields an ex- 

 tract, possessing the virtues of opium, 

 only in a much milder degree. This is 

 called the syrup of the white poppy, and 

 is adapted to the use of children. It may 

 be observed, that the seeds possess no 

 narcotic powers ; they consist of a simple 

 farinaceous matter, united with an oil, and 

 in some countries they are eaten as food. 



POPULATION, the proportion of in- 

 habitants which a country or district con- 

 tains. The increase or diminution of the 

 members of a state has at all periods been 

 thought an object deserving the atten- 

 tion of governments ; but very different 

 opinions have been entertained on the 

 subject. 



Some ancient nations adopted regula- 

 tions to prevent any augmentation of the 

 number of citizens ; but in modern times 

 it has generally been thought proper to 

 encourage population as essential to the 

 strength and prosperity of a state. Posi- 

 tive regulations against the increase of 

 population are superfluous and nugatory ; 

 it is limited in every country by the 

 means of subsistence, and if it ever actu- 

 ally passes this barrier, it must in a very 

 short time, be restored to its former le- 

 vel. So long as there is a facility of sub- 

 sistence, men will be encouraged to ear- 

 ly marriages, and to a careful rearing of 

 their children. In the American states, 

 the inhabitants, particularly such as are 

 engaged in agriculture, congratulate 

 themselves upon the increase of their fa- 

 milies, as upon a new accession of wealth ; 

 for the labour of their children, even in 

 an early stage, soon redeems, and even 

 repays with interest, the expence and 

 trouble of rearing them. In such coun- 

 tries the wages of the labourer are high, 



for the number of labourers bears no pro 

 portion to the demand and to the gene- 

 ral spirit of enterprise. In many Euro- 

 pean countries, on the other hand, a large 

 family has become a proverbial expres- 

 sion for an uncommon degree of poverty 

 and wretchedness. 



The obvious principle, that population 

 is necessarily limited by the means of 

 subsistence, has been stated, and conclu- 

 sions drawn from it, by many different 

 writers ; but it has lately been discussed 

 at great length in an " Essay on the Prin- 

 ciple of Population," by Mr. T. R. Mal- 

 thus, who has endeavoured to prove that 

 population invariably increases where the 

 means of subsistence increase, unless pre- 

 vented by some very powerful'and obvi- 

 ous checks ; and that these checks, and 

 the checks which repress the superior 

 power of population, and keep its effects 

 on a level with the means of subsistence, 

 are all resolvable into moral restraint, 

 vice, and misery. Under whatever de- 

 nomination the causes which adjust popu- 

 lation to the circumstances of the coun- 

 try may be classed, it is certain that they 

 exist in every civilized country, and while 

 the nature of man remains the same, they 

 must continue to exist, although operat- 

 ing in a greater or less degree, according 

 to the progress the country has made in 

 cultivation, commerce, and political pow- 

 er. In the' northern states of America, 

 where the means of subsistence are more 

 ample, the manners of the people more 

 pure, and the impediments to early mar- 

 riages fewer than in any of the modern 

 states of Europe, the population was 

 found to double itself for some successive 

 periods every twenty-five years, while in 

 Great Britain, where commerce and ma- 

 nufactures have created large towns, 

 where an almost constant supply is want- 

 ing to recruit a formidable army and na- 

 vy, and where many other causes exist 

 which prevent any considerable increase, 

 the population has not doubled itself in 

 more than one hundred and fifty years. 



If a powerful check to increase must 

 exist in some form or other, Mr. Malthus 

 observes, that it is clearly better it should 

 arise from a foresight of the difficulty 

 of rearing a family, and the fear of de- 

 pendant poverty, than from the actual 

 presence of pain and sickness; moral re- 

 straint, or the determination to defer or 

 decline matrimony from a consideration 

 of the inconveniences or deprivations to 

 which a large portion of the community 

 would subject themselves by pursuing 

 the dictate of nature, is therefore a virtue, 



