354 Of the Checks to Population Bk. ii. 



permission to marry, but go on till he could ob- 

 tain something like a provision for a family. 



I was much disappointed, when in Switzerland, 

 at not being able to procure any details respecting 

 the smaller cantons ; but the disturbed state of 

 the country made it impossible. It is to be pre- 

 sumed, however, that as they are almost entirely 

 in pasture, they must resemble in a great measure 

 the alpine parishes of the Pays de Vaud in the 

 extraordinary health of the people, and the abso- 

 lute necessity of the preventive check ; except 

 where these circumstances may have been altered 

 by a more than usual habit of emigration, or by 

 the introduction of manufactures.* 



The limits to the population of a country strictly 

 pastoral are strikingly obvious. There are no 



* M. Prevost, of Geneva, in his translation of this work, gives 

 some account of the small Canton of Glavis, in which the cotton- 

 manufacture had been introduced. It appears that it had been 

 very prosperous at first, and had occasioned a habit of early mar- 

 riages, and a considerable increase of population ; but subse- 

 quently wages became extremely low, and a fourth part of the 

 population was dependent upon charity for their support. The 

 proportions of the births and deaths to the population, instead of 

 being 1 to 36, and 1 to 45, as in the Pays de Vaud, had become 

 as 1 to 26, and 1 to 35. And, according to a later account in the 

 last translation, the proportion of the births to the population, 

 during the 14 years from 1805 to 1819, was as 1 to 24, and of the 

 deaths as 1 to 30. 



These proportions shew the prevalence of early marriages, and 

 its natural consequences in such a situation, and under such circum- 

 stances — great poverty and great mortality. M. Heer, who gave 

 M. Prevost the information, seems to have foreseen these conse- 

 quences early. 



