POPULATION. 201 



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We shall not be surprised at the partial contradic- 

 tions found in the tables of population in America, 

 when we take into consideration all the difficulties 

 that have been encountered in the centres of Euro- 

 pean civilization, England and France, whenever the 

 great operation of a general census is attempted. 

 No one is ignorant, for example, of the fact, that the 

 population of Paris, in 1820, was 714,000, and from 

 the number of deaths, and supposed proportion of 

 births to the total population, it is believed to have 

 been 520,000, at the beginning of the eighteenth 

 century ; yet, during the administration of Mon. 

 Neckar, the ascertained population was one-sixth 

 less than this number. It is known, that, from 1801 

 to 1821, the population of England and Wales 

 increased 3,104,683, yet the registers of births and 

 deaths show an increase of only 2,1 73, 41 6 ; and it is 

 impossible to attribute the difference of 931,267 to 

 immigration from Ireland. These examples do not 

 prove that we should distrust the calculations of 



nearly 325,000 whites, and one the best informed gentlemen of 

 Havana, who was well acquainted with the country, estimated them, 

 in 1823, at 340,000. (See On Independence of Cuba, p. 17.) In 

 some parts of the island statistical tables have been formed with 

 great care ; in San Juan de los Remedios, and Filipinas, for exam- 

 ple, particularly those made by Don Joaquin Vigil y Quinones and 

 Don Jose Aguilar, in 1819. — H. 



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