418 Of the Checks to Population Bk. ii. 



in every point of view, afford very uncertain data 

 on which to ground any estimates of past popula- 

 tion. In the years 1710, 1720, and 1730, it ap- 

 pears from the returns that the deaths exceeded 

 the births ; and taking the six periods ending in 

 1750,* including the first half of the century, if we 

 compare the sum of the births with the sum of the 

 deaths, the excess of the births is so small, as to 

 be perfectly inadequate to account for the increase 

 of a million, which, upon a calculation from the 

 births alone, is supposed to have taken place in 

 that time.f Consequently, either the registers 

 are very inaccurate, and the deficiencies in the 

 births greater than in the deaths ; or these periods, 

 each at the distance of ten years, do not express 

 the just average. These particular years may 

 have been more unfavourable with respect to the 

 proportion of births to deaths than the rest ; in- 

 deed one of them, 1710, is known to have been a 

 year of great scarcity and distress. But if this 

 suspicion, which is very probable, be admitted, 

 so as to affect the six first periods, we may justly 

 suspect the contrary accident to have happened 

 with regard to the three following periods ending 

 with 1780; in which thirty years it would seem, by 

 the same mode of calculation, that an increase of 

 a million and a half had taken place.;}: At any 

 rate it must be allowed, that the three separate 



* Population Abstracts, Parish Registers. Final summary, 

 p. 455. 



•\ Observ. on the Results or the Population Act, p. 9. 

 + Ibid. 



