On this ground, that the most moral men will always be the most useful, the most improved, the most valued, and the most prosperous men in every society, increase of population must augment the number of the moralized individuals, and the general habits and practice of morality in the country. The necessity for them will be augmented with the fresh numbers that arise. They will be more appreciated as they are more wanted. They will be more selected and preferred for their utilities; and as they multiply in number, all that are not so will fail and suffer in every class from their depreciation and inferiority, on account of their deficiency. While we can help ourselves to what is better, we shall never take what is worse.

But do no evils attend an increase of population? None, I think, from the increase alone. No new ones accrue which did not exist before. The young generations come unoffendingly among us as to themselves, and have been planned to come in the most helpless and docile form, that we may mould them to our wishes, and make them what they ought to be. If, then, they afterward become producers of evil, they are trained to be so by our habits, and only imitate at first what they find, and continue it because they have learned from us to practise it.

It is true, they want subsistence, and must acquire it; but so do all among whom they come; and until nature fails to produce what their industry solicits from it, there will be enough for them to share, as well as for their predecessors to enjoy.

They have likewise to be settled in some channels by which they may gain what they require; but they bring new wants and new labour with them, and these enlarge the ancient channels or form new ones. The same difficulties exist

every hour in society, whether more come or not; all stages of it have their poor, and necessitous, and unprovided: the stationary population as much as the enlarging, and the declining many more. If population should produce no more than merely to replace itself, yet it must have its infant, who must be fed by others, and old age, which cannot maintain itself by its labour. The same proportion of these exist at all times, and, as far as public mendicancy indicates destitution, more of this, in its most miserable shapes, appears in countries that enlarge but little, than in an increasing population like our own. Vice,

crime, and penury coexist in all nations, and are the chief causes of each other. They never disappear when population stops, and do not increase in ratio, though they may in mere number, because it multiplies and prospers.

LETTER XIX.

Views of the State of the Living World in several Countries.-The Comparative Proportion of their Inhabitants at the succeeding Ages of Life.-The possible Longevity of Human Nature, and Instances of it in various Parts of the World.

MY DEAR SYDNEY,

Having thus surveyed the laws and system which have been established for the continuance and governed augmentations of the human population, let us now consider the natural state of our LIVING WORLD, which results from them, as this will show us the plan and intention of the Creator in appointing them, and in sustaining their daily operations.

We will begin our inquiry with our own country, as that in which, as residents in it, we cannot be but most interested.

One remarkable fact appears to us in our living world, which is, that the males with us are almost equally divided between those who are under twenty years of age and those who are older. In the year 1821, nearly one half of all the male inhabitants of Great Britain were found to be less than twenty years old; and the other moiety to be above that age. The same fact occurred again in the census of 1831.† This was as true of England and Wales by themselves as of Scotland, with a little more on the younger side, separately taken. §

"In the enumeration of 1821, the males under twenty were 3,072,392; upward of twenty, 3.002,200; including all the males whose ages were then ascertained."--Rickm. Enum. Abst., vol. i., p. 9.

"In the enumeration of 1831, the males known to be under twenty were 3,941,495; upward of twenty, 3,944,511."-Ib.

Mr. Rickman has classed the ages in England and Wales in 1821.Enum. Abst., p. 37. In this table those under twenty amount to 2,598,636, those above twenty are 2,552,416. In 1831 the males in ENGLAND of twenty years were 3,199,984; and those under twenty were 3,176,643. In WALES, those of twenty were 194,706; under that age, 199,857.-Rickm., ib., vol. ii., p. 1043.

In 1831 the males in Scotland of twenty were 549,821; and under,

It was likewise nearly the case in Ireland, with some larger difference in her juvenile portion.* That all the great members of our community, though differing in their localities, and in many of their leading habits and circumstances, are yet under such assimilating influences as to have an approximation or uniformity of social condition in this respect, is an interesting certainty, which deserves our recollection: the young and the mature thus balance each other in the constitu tion of our living world: many civil and social consequences must follow from such a partition.

But the precise year of the age which divides the propor tions of the juvenile and elder population is not the same as ours in all other countries. Like all the ratios which concern our birth and life, the term that separates the younger and maturer part of society varies in each nation; but yet again, like them, the varieties are bounded, in these diversities, by limits universally sustained.

Thus, in America, as we have before remarked, one half of its inhabitants are under sixteen years of age, and all the rest older. In Russia, we found that half of its newborn generations died under fifteen ; while in Saxony, a moiety are older than either of these, being almost twenty-three years; and in France, twenty-six years is the dividing boundary of her longer living youth. Hence more of the young survive to twenty in Great Britain than in either the United States or the Russian empire; but not so many as in Saxony, and particularly as in France; as if this last-mentioned country had

564,995.-Rickm., ib., 1043. The division here would be nearer twentyone than twenty.

* In 1831 nearly one half of the males were twenty years of age, being 1,867,765; those younger were 1,927,115. It was the same in each of her four provinces.

Leinster
Munster

Ulster

Connaught.

TWENTY.

465,953

542,200

540,479

319,133

UNDER TWENTY.

461,924

551,211

572,615

341,365

The last three, having the greater portion of the younger, would make the exactly dividing age almost twenty-one.-Pop. Abst. Ireland, p. 342. † See before, Lett. VIII., p. 58-61.

See before, Lett. XIV., p. 127.

In 1834 its males were 775,244; of these, those under twenty-three were 385,362; the above were 389,884.

The Compte General" for 1826, presented by the Garde des Sceaux, states the population of France to have been, at that time, 30,000,000; and thus distinguishes them

been, at the time of this census, more favourable to youthful duration than even our own. I have not seen a later discrimination. The portions in Canada, at the census of 1825, resembled those of England in this point.*

The subsequent ages present to us some impressive indications of the superior duration of individual life in England as compared with the United States of America, which I have not yet seen noticed. Whether the difference of salubrity arises from climate, nature of soil, habits of the people, their employments, their political excitements, or their busy moveable life, or from a mixture of all these accidents, it may be difficult to decide. It is, however, striking enough to

According to this series, those under twenty-five were 14,594,530; so that the full moiety would be nearer twenty-six, if each number be quite

make us feel that length of life beyond the middle period is not a benefit to be at present sought for there; but rather to be surrendered by those who may go to the Hudson or to the Ohio in search of other advantages from a settlement in these provinces..

The contrast between the two countries as to duration of individual life thus appears: In America, nearly one third were under ten.* In England and Wales, the same proportion were a year older.† While about half were only sixteen in the States, with us they were twenty. Nearly two thirds there were under twenty-six, but the same quantity here were between thirty and thirty-one. In America, one seventh only were forty; one eighth forty-five; one twelfth fifty; and but one seventieth were seventy. In our own island, one seventh were fifty; one fifth were forty-five; less than one fourth were forty; and a thirty-fifth part were seventy. Thus we have twice as great a proportion of aged persons at seventy as the American republic possesses; only one seventh less than double the same proportion of the number at fifty; above one half as many more at forty-five; not less at forty; five years longer at twenty-six; and four years longer at sixteen. Hence Englishmen live longer in England, at all these ages, by the differences above expressed, than the inhabitants of the United States in their domestic localities. So that emigration to the American commonwealth from our native soil may be considered to carry with it a probable abbreviation of life. Not so to the Canadas. The duration of vitality there resembles much that which takes place in Great Britain.** I am inclined to think that the advantage depends

* See before, Lett. VIII., p. 58-61.

In 1821 the males living under ten in England and Wales were 1,485,437. The one third would have been 1,717,017. The addition of those a year older would bring the numbers to this amount.

The numbers were 2,598,636. The exact half would have been

2,575,526.

The males returned under thirty were 3,354,416. would have been 3,434,034.

See before, p. 58-61.

Two thirds

Those of fifty and upward were 720,645. One seventh would have been 735,864; under forty were 3,948,078; adding to these one half of those between forty and fifty, we have for those who were forty-five 1,031,872. One fifth would be 1,030,210. Those of forty and above were 1,203,974; one fourth was 1,288,103; at seventy were 146,932, which is nearly one thirty-fifth of 5,151,052.-See Rickm. Table, vol. i., p. 37. ** The males in Bouchette's table, reckoning them as half of those