416 Of the Checks to Population Bk. ii. 



these inferences, it is evident, that we should 

 attend less to the column expressing the number 

 of children born, than to the column expressing 

 the number which survived the age of infancy 

 and reached manhood ; and this number will al- 

 most invariably be the greatest, where the pro- 

 portion of the births to the whole population is 

 the least. In this point, we rank next after Nor- 

 way and Switzerland, which, considering the 

 number of our great towns and manufactories, is 

 certainly a very extraordinary fact. As nothing 

 can be more clear, than that all our demands for 

 population are fully supplied, if this be done with 

 a small proportion of births, it is a decided proof 

 of a very small mortality, a distinction on which 

 we may justly pride ourselves. Should it appear 

 from future investigations that I have made too 

 great an allowance for omissions both in the births 

 and in the burials, I shall be extremely happy to 

 find that this distinction, which, other circum- 

 stances being the same, I consider as the surest 

 test of happiness and good government, is even 

 greater than I have supposed it to be. In des- 

 potic, miserable, or naturally unhealthy countries, 

 the proportion of births to the whole population 

 will generally be found very great. 



On an average of the five years ending in 1 800, 

 the proportion of births to marriages is 347 to 

 100. In 1760, it was 362 to 100, from which an 

 inference is drawn, that the registers of births, 

 however deficient, were certainly not more defi- 



