Ch. xii. Of the Checks to Population, 8$c. 207 



charged; nor the literati, the licentiates, the doc- 

 tors, the bonzas, nor young persons under twenty 

 years of age, nor the great multitudes living either 

 on the sea or on rivers in barks, are compre- 

 hended in this number.* 



The proportion, which the number of men of a 

 military age bears to the whole population of any 

 country, is generally estimated as 1 to 4. If we 

 multiply 59,788,364 by 4, the result will be 

 239,153,456; but in the general calculations on 

 this subject, a youth is considered as capable of 

 bearing arms before he is twenty. We ought 

 therefore to have multiplied by a higher number. 

 The exceptions to the poll seem to include almost 

 all the superior classes of society, and a very 

 great number among the lower. When all these 

 circumstances are taken into consideration, the 

 whole population, according to Duhalde, will not 

 appear to fall very short of the 333,000,000 men- 

 tioned by Sir George Staunton.f 



The small number of families in proportion to 

 the number of persons able to bear arms, which 

 is a striking part of this statement of Duhalde, is 

 accounted for by a custom noticed by Sir George 

 Staunton as general in China. In the enclosure 

 belonging to one dwelling, he observes that a 

 whole family of three generations, with all their 

 respective wives and children, will frequently be 

 found. One small room is made to serve for the 



* Duhalde's Hist, of China, 2 vols, folio, 1738. vol. i. p. 244. 

 f Embassy to China, vol. ii. Appen. p. 615. 4to. 



