Ch. vi. in France. 381 



often find the principle of population very happily 

 illustrated. I should have made it the subject of 

 a distinct chapter, but was fearful of extending 



ber of small proprietors, and particularly the attempt to cultivate 

 too much surface in proportion to the capital employed, it often 

 amounts to a fourth, a third, or even a half. When property is so 

 much divided that the rent and profit of a farm must be combined, 

 in order to support a family upon it, a land-tax must necessarily 

 greatly impede cultivation ; though it has little or no effect of this 

 kiud when farms are large, and let out to tenants, as is most fre- 

 quently the case in England. Among the impediments to agricul- 

 ture mentioned in the reports, the too great division of lands from 

 the new laws of succession is noticed. The partition of some of 

 the great domains would probably contribute to the improvement 

 of agriculture ; but subdivisions of the nature here alluded to 

 would certainly have a contrary effect, and would tend most parti- 

 cularly to diminish neat produce, and make a land-tax both op- 

 pressive and unproductive. If all the land in England were divided 

 into farms of 2QI. a-year, we should probably be more populous 

 than we are at present ; but as a nation we should be extremely 

 poor, and should be under a total inability of maintaining the 

 same number of manufactures or collecting the same taxes as at 

 present. All the departments demand a diminution of the con- 

 tribution fonciere as absolutely necessary to the prosperity of agri- 

 culture. 



Of the state of the hospitals and charitable establishments, of 

 the prevalence of beggary and the mortality among the exposed 

 children, a most deplorable picture is drawn in almost all the re- 

 ports ; from which we should at first be disposed to infer a greater 

 degree of poverty and misery among all the lower classes of people 

 in general. It appears, however, that the hospitals and charitable 

 establishments lost almost the whole of their revenues during the 

 revolution ; and this sudden subtraction of support from a great 

 number of people who had no other reliance, together with the 

 known failure of manufactures in the towns, and the very great 

 increase of illegitimate children, might produce all the distressing 

 appearances described in the reports, without impeaching the great 



