Ch. x. in Scotland and Ireland. 469 



of the common people. It has been calculated 

 that the half of the surplus of births in Scot- 

 land is drawn off in emigrations; and it cannot 

 be doubted that this drain tends greatly to relieve 

 the country, and to improve the condition of those 

 which remain. Scotland is certainly still over- 

 peopled, but not so much as it was a century 

 or half a century ago, when it contained fewer 

 inhabitants. 



The details of the population of Ireland are but 

 little known. I shall only observe therefore, that 

 the extended use of potatoes has allowed of a very 

 rapid increase of it during the last century. But 

 the cheapness of this nourishing root, and the 

 small piece of ground which, under this kind of 

 cultivation, will in average years produce the 

 food for a family, joined to the ignorance and de- 

 pressed state of the people, which have prompted 

 them to follow their inclinations with no other 

 prospect than an immediate bare subsistence, 

 have encouraged marriage to such a degree, that 

 the population is pushed much beyond the in- 

 dustry and present resources of the country ; and 

 the consequence naturally is, that the lower 

 classes of people are in the most impoverished and 

 miserable state. The checks to the population 

 are of course chiefly of the positive kind, and arise 

 from the diseases occasioned by squalid poverty, 

 by damp and wretched cabins, by bad and insuffi- 

 cient clothing, and occasional want. To these 

 positive checks have, of late years, been added 



