198 Of the Checks to Population in Bk. i. 



tremities, we may easily conjecture what must 

 have been the sufferings of the lowest class. 



Such passages clearly prove the existence of 

 seasons of the most severe distress, at the early 

 period when these ordinances were composed ; 

 and we have reason to think, that they have oc- 

 curred at irregular intervals ever since. One of 

 the Jesuits says that it is impossible for him to 

 describe the misery to which he was witness 

 during the two-years' famine in 1737 and 1738;* 

 but the description which he gives of it, and of the 

 mortality which it occasioned, is sufficiently dread- 

 ful without further detail. Another Jesuit, speak- 

 ing more generally, says, " Every year we bap- 

 " tize a thousand children, whom their parents 

 " can no longer feed, or who, being likely to die, 

 " are sold to us by their mothers, in order to get 

 " rid of them. "f 



The positive checks to population would of 

 course fall principally upon the Sudra class, and 

 those still more miserable beings, who are the 

 outcasts of all the classes and are not even suf- 

 fered to live within the towns.J 



On this part of the population the epidemics, 

 which are the consequences of indigence and bad 

 nourishment, and the mortality among young 

 children, would necessarily make great ravages : 

 and thousands of these unhappy wretches would 

 probably be swept off in a period of scarcity, be- 



* Lettres Edif. torn. xiv. p. 178. 



t Id. p. 284. 



% Sir William Jones's Works, vol. iii. c. x. p. 390. 



