44 
NOTES OX THE POPULATION OF JAVA. 
breast/’ the males again exceed the females, and by above 12 
per cent, a discrepancy which, if the return be reliable, is 
not easily accounted for. It may be, however, that, from 
greater care, more male than female children are reared, 
although the character of the Javanese would hardly bear out 
this inference. 
On comparing the whole male with the whole female popu¬ 
lation, we find 20,316 of the first and 19,308 of the last, show¬ 
ing a small excess in the males of about 510 per cent, which 
may be accounted for by few of the men emigrating or being 
engaged in dangerous employments, as well as by the pre¬ 
sence of a considerable number of men from the provinces 
without their families, performing corvee labour for the prince. 
By comparing the number of married men with the women, 
(the excess of the latter is but very trifling, viz. 167 in 10,188,) 
we see that the effect of polygamy is almost imperceptible, a 
conclusion readily assented to, adverting to the principle 
which guides increase of population. The widows exceed 
the widowers by nearly 30 per cent, but the class designated 
widows includes, if 1 remember well, a good many persons 
of easy morality who go commonly by another name. 
The next statement which I rffer to the Society is the 
result of my own personal enquiry. Some travellers, in 
order to account for the supposed preva’ence of polygamy in 
the East, had asserted that a great excess of females over 
males was born, and Java, in particular had been quoted as 
an example. Anxious to test the truth of this notion I per¬ 
sonally took down the statements of 141 aged women on the 
subject. The details, as given by each individual, are now 
before me, and the following is an abstract of the Table in 
which they are set down. The parties were all in humble 
but still easy circumstances, as, indeed, in my time, was the 
case with the Javanese generally : 
Number of Male children .472 
Do. of Female do.547 
Total births.1,019 
Died of small-pox. 102 
Died of other diseases . 549 
Total mortality .65L 
Lived to the age of marriage .338 
From this statement, it will appear that the population of 
females born exceeds the males by 15.88 per cent or that 
they are as 111. 65 to 100. I give this statement exactly as 
I find it in my notes. The result, I remember surprised me 
at the time 1 made the inquiry, differing so widely as it does 
