Ch. v. in Switzerland. 357 



country, in which, as it has appeared, the preven- 

 tive check prevailed to a very considerable de- 

 gree, might have produced a temporary check to 

 increase at the period when there was such an 

 universal cry about depopulation. If this were 

 so, it without doubt contributed to improve the 

 condition of the lower classes of people. All the 

 foreign travellers in Switzerland, soon after this 

 time, invariably take notice of the state of the 

 Swiss peasantry as superior to that of other coun- 

 tries. In a late excursion to Switzerland, I was 

 rather disappointed not to find it so superior as I 

 had been taught to expect. The greatest part of 

 the unfavourable change might justly be attri- 

 buted to the losses and sufferings of the people 

 during the late troubles ; but a part perhaps to 

 the ill-directed efforts of the different govern- 

 ments to increase the population, and to the ulti- 

 mate consequences even of efforts well directed, 

 and for a time calculated to advance the comforts 

 and happiness of the people. 



I was very much struck with an effect of this 

 last kind, in an expedition to the Lac de Jouiv in 

 the Jura. The party had scarcely arrived at a 

 little inn at the end of the lake, when the mistress 

 of the house began to complain of the poverty and 

 misery of all the parishes in the neighbourhood. 

 She said that the country produced little, and yet 

 was full of inhabitants ; that boys and girls were 

 marrying who ought still to be at school; and 

 that, while this habit of early marriages conti- 



