Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1808 edition. Excerpt: ...we should rather find it difficult to account for that increase of our numbers, which is supposed to exist. For we may also observe, that if, in a very few remarkably healthy country parishes, such as Ackworth in Yorkshire, where the population is very inconsiderable, half of the born live to marry, or one-tenth part more than twofifths; on the other hand, in such immensely populous cities as London, oneseventh, or one-sixth part less than two-fifths five to marry; and in such towns as Norwich and Warrington, one-ninth part less than twofifths do the same. So that we have reason to suspect, that two-fifths of the children born in England., do not live to marry, and that there is no real increase of native population, at least in the more central and opulent parts; and that whatever additional population appears to exist, is the result of a continual accession of individuals from the extreme parts of the empire, as some from Wales, many more from Scotland and Ireland, and several from other dominions. The increase of the inhabitants of many large towns proceeds in a great measure from the diminution of population in country villages; where tillage land has been laid down to pasture, or small farms swallowed up in large ones. What then is the inference we would deduce from the above observations?--If in this country, where the resources are so very various and abundant for the support of a much more numerous population, whether from the retrenchments of luxury, the redemption of land, either such as is unprofitably employed, or in a state approximating to waste, as also from the stores of the ocean; where so enormous a trading capital is amaseed, the demand for labour is so great, and the wages so high, as to allure continually a number of...
