446 Of the Checks to Population Bk. ii. 



ther documents before any fresh conclusion is 

 drawn respecting the probable amount of omis- 

 sions in the births and burials. What may be 

 considered as certain is, that, whereas the sup- 

 posed admissions of one sixth in the births and 

 one twelfth in the burials, with a proper allow- 

 ance for the deaths abroad, are more than sufficient 

 to account for the increase of population during 

 the twenty years from 1781 to 1801, according to 

 the numbers stated by Mr. Rickman, they are 

 not sufficient to account for the increase of po- 

 pulation in the 20 years from 1801 to 1821, ac- 

 cording to the enumerations. 



I have heard it surmised that the enumerations, 

 particularly the two last, may by possibility ex- 

 ceed rather than fall short of the truth, owing to 

 persons being reckoned more than once, from their 

 having different places of residence. It must be 

 allowed, that this supposition would account for 

 the fact of the diminished proportions of births 

 and marriages to the whole population, notwith- 

 standing the apparent increase of that population 

 with extraordinary rapidity. But the same di- 

 minished proportions would take place owing to 

 a diminished mortality ; and as a diminished mor- 

 tality has been satisfactorily established on other 

 grounds, it will fairly account for much of what 

 appears. And if anything can justly be attributed 

 to over enumerations, it must be of trifling 

 amount. 

 ' That there are great omissions both in the births 



