266 Of the Checks to Population Bk. ii. 



times have a household of twenty persons, includ- 

 ing his own family. 



The means of maintenance to a single man are, 

 therefore, much less confined than to a married 

 man ; and under such circumstances the lower 

 classes of people cannot increase much, till the 

 increase of mercantile stock, or the division and 

 improvement of farms, furnishes a greater quan- 

 tity of employment for married labourers. In 

 countries more fully peopled this subject is always 

 involved in great obscurity. Each man naturally 

 thinks, that he has as good a chance of finding 

 employment as his neighbour ; and that, if he fail 

 in one place, he shall succeed in some other. 

 He marries, therefore, and trusts to fortune ; and 

 the effect too frequently is, that redundant popu- 

 lation occasioned in this manner is repressed by 

 the positive checks of poverty and disease. In 

 Norway the subject is not involved in the same 

 obscurity. The number of additional families, 

 which the increasing demand for labour will sup- 

 port, is more distinctly marked. The population 

 is so small, that even in the towns it is difficult to 

 fall into any considerable error on this subject; 

 and in the country the division and improvement 

 of an estate, and the creation of a greater number 

 of housemen's places, must be a matter of com- 

 plete notoriety. If a man can obtain one of these 

 places, he marries, and is able to support a family; 

 if he cannot obtain one, he remains single. A re- 

 dundant population is thus prevented from taking- 

 place, instead of being destroyed after it has taken 

 place. 



