426 Of the Checks to Population Bk. ii. 



In estimating the population throughout the 

 century,* the births have been assumed to bear 

 the same proportion at all times to the number of 

 people. It has been seen that such an assump- 

 tion might often lead to a very incorrect estimate 

 of the population of a country at different and 

 distant periods. As the population however is 

 known to have increased with great rapidity from 

 1800 to 1810, it is probable that the proportion 

 of births did not essentially diminish during that 

 period. But if, taking the last enumeration as 

 correct, we compare the births of 1810 with the 

 births of 1800, the result will imply a larger po- 

 pulation in 1800 than is given in the enumeration 

 for that year. 



Thus the average of the last five years' births 

 to 1810 is 297,000, and the average of the five 

 years' births to 1800 is 263,000. But 297,000 

 is to 263,000 as 10,488,000, the population of 

 1810, to 9,287,000, which must therefore have 

 been the population in 1800, if the proportion of 

 births be assumed to be the same, instead of 

 9,198,000, the result of the enumeration. It is 

 further to be obseved that the increase of popu- 

 lation from 1795 to 1800 is according to the table 

 unusually small, compared with most of the pre- 

 ceding periods of five years. And a slight in- 

 spection of the registers will shew that the pro- 

 portion of births for five years from 1795, including 



* See a table of the population throughout the century, in 

 page xxv. of the Preliminary Observations to the Population Ab- 

 tracts, printed in 181 1. 



