he wishes to obtain a breed from some particular mare, sow, or heifer? Does he fatten the animal in order to secure its fecundity? He does precisely the contrary. He keeps it lean. He keeps it in that state in which nature keeps all animals engaged in search and travel for food, and exposed to perpetual interruptions during their time of feeding. He does this because he knows that to "fatten" the animal; to bring it into the " plethoric state" by means of plenty of food and leisure, would inevitably be to destroy the chances of its fruitfulness. This is a piece of knowledge which is acted upon every day, which has been acted upon through hundreds of years; and as to the certainty of which, no person engaged in the pursuits of grazing or agriculture, hesitates for a moment. With the prolific rabbit every schoolboy knows this to be the case. He knows that in the domestic state they must be stinted in food, and kept clean, to make them breed. That the same law holds good with domestic fowls, the little French fable of "Une Femme et sa Poule," sufficiently proves. The dame (who is a sort of Malthusian in her way), thinks to get a double supply of eggs by giving her hen double rations of barley! What is the consequence? The poor pullet becomes like the Lord Hamlet, "fat and scant of breath""fort grassé," and not an egg from that time forward will she lay ! Why, my lord-why will we persist in shutting our eyes to homely facts, and opening them, at full stretch, to boldly asserted and merely plausible theories?

I now come to the home point of my argument. I have now arrived at the time when I must show-if I can show that the analogies upon which I have already touched, and in some degree enlarged, are most fully borne out in the human world; and that even a cursory examination as to the phenomena of population, will show that the same laws which regulate the march of vegetable and animal productiveness, govern also the peopling of the world by beings made of the same clay with your Lordship and myself. To do this I have not a paucity, but a superabundance of materials. I am embarrassed only by the variety of the facts as to which I am to treat. I am to go back to the vague traditional lore of former ages,

and to more modern but still bygone notions of a time nearer to our own; and then to show them how these old fantastic notions or prejudices singularly agree with the truth, when developed, being, in point of fact, built upon that truth, and all along supported by it. To this I now proceed; and first, my Lord, let me beg your Lordship's attention to the ancient but widely dif fused notions of the superior fecundity of those people who were known by the title of "Icthyophagi," or Fish-eaters. These people were universally believed in ancient times to be more prolific than the rest of mankind, Aristotle, amongst others, bearing witness as to the fact. From this universal belief arose the fable of the origin of Venus from the sea. Strange mixture of truth the most important, with imagination the most fantastical! That any people living exclusively upon the low and meagre diet of fish must be unnaturally prolific, the experience of modern times will sufficiently prove. The fecundity, however, is, not because the sustenance is "fish," but because the sustenance is poor. This I shall, in the proper place, make apparent, by a comparison between the prolificness of people, such as the inhabitants of the Highlands and Western Islands of Scotland, who subsist upon a low diet, chiefly of fish and vegetables, and that of the natives of more favoured countries, whose fare is richer, more plentiful, and more solid-and whose labour and exposure are less. This general notion of a thin and meagre diet being favourable to fruitfulness, is borne out by the recorded opinions of medical writers upon this subject down to thepresent day. Dr Cheyne and others, in their Dietetic Treatises, insist upon it, and instances are enumerated, by medical writers of all ages, of persons, who, being childless during their prosperity, became parents of families after being subjected to privations and the scanty table and hard bed of misfortune. The extraordinary tendencies to propagation, evinced by all persons convalescent, after enfeebling diseases, pestilences, fevers, &c., is known to all medical men, elucidating the same law. These considerations, however, are general, and as general narrations of facts, given by writers ancient and modern, without any reference to the peculiar

point now in dispute, I alone refer to them. Let us proceed to try the evidence of facts more specific, and under our own immediate notice, and within our own immediate knowledge. And here, my Lord, I shall come home to your Lordship, and refer you to the history of that House in which your Lordship sits, and of which you are one of the principal ornaments. In that House, what description of spectacle do we behold?

We be

hold a collection of men, selected originally on account of their power and wealth, invested with enviable privileges and irresponsible power, and inheriting these privileges and that power because they belonged to their forefathers. Such men have every inducement that human nature can devise to transmit their valuable possessions to their posterity, and to have lineal successors to whom to transmit them. Yet what has been the event? Have they increased in numbers, as, according to the Malthusian theory, they must have done? No such thing! It is notorious that, but for perpetual "creations," they would have gone on decreasing in number. That nearly half of the present House of Peers have been made Peers during the last half century; and that, had they been left to their own powers of adding to their numbers, since the accession of the Tudors to the throne, they could hardly have reckoned past a score or two. Why is the principle of increase dead, then, here, where of all conceivable places it ought to live; and why is it living in the instance which I am about to quote, where of all places it ought to have died?

A few years ago, was, by a mere chance, discovered upon a small and barren island, named "Pitcairn's Island," a little colony founded by four or five of the mutineers who ran away with his Majesty's ship Bounty, when under the command of Captain Bligh, on what was called "the BreadfruitTree Expedition." This mutiny took place not quite fifty years ago; and after some vicissitudes, it should seem that John Adams, the patriarch of this colony, with four other Englishmen, and an equal number of male native Otaheitans, with a corresponding number of females, took refuge in this little Island of Pitcairn. Here, from accident and the effects of ungoverned

passions, their population was soon di minished. One man fell from a cliff and was killed-the others quarrelled as to the possession of the females, and in a few months Adams and his three companions, with seven women in all, and with the children then existing, not amounting to twenty individuals, were the inhabitants of the island. It was a spot by no means abounding in articles of sustenance. Animal food there was none, save such as could be derived from a few rabbits and rats. The birds were principally sea fowl; and upon their eggs, and upon the fish, with which the coast abounded, the colonists for the most part subsisted-obtaining a precarious livelihood with much toil and some danger—and ekeing out these scanty supplies with the fruits which the woods afforded. Grain they had none, nor, as it should seem, any variety of esculent vegetables. When discovered, Adams and his descendants had been upon the island forty years and upwards; and during this period the numbers of this singular colony amounted to one hundred and eighty persons of all ages. Here the theory of Malthus had taken its full swing in practice. Not content with doubling their numbers in each twenty-five years, this prolific community had at least oc-tupled itself in forty years; but is there any man to believe that this was in consequence of the truth of this theory? If so, then such believer must hold, that out of their rabbits and their rats, these colonists contrived to obtain more and better dinners than the House of Lords could do from their estates, if comparative plenty or scarcity of victuals be the cause of high or low states of population; for, whilst the one went on decreasing, the other went on increasing at this fearful rate! This, my Lord, it is impossible to believe; but upon the principle I have laid down, how easily is the whole accounted for? These colonists thus rapidly increased, not because they had abundance to sustain life, but for the opposite reason, because their fare was meagre and scanty, and obtained only through incessant exercise and exposure of all kinds. Thus they "increased and multiplied," whilst the manors of the luxurious lords were passing into alien hands for want of heirs, and the second estate was literally eating itself

off the face of the earth. It may be said that these islanders were removed from contact with many contagious diseases. True-but were they more so than the children of the English peers, surrounded with their wide and lofty park walls, and secured by every means man can devise from the vicissitudes of heat and cold, the stroke of the sun, or the chill of the damp evening sea-breeze? Not so; deprived of medicine or medical assistance in case of disease or accidents, their exposure to casualties must have been great, and I defy you or any one, my Lord, to account for the different situations of these two bodies of persons, with any show of probability, on grounds other than those I have adduced.

Similar consequences are observed to take place in the black population of the Southern United American States. The numbers of the slaves increase, whilst the emancipated Negroes or freed-blacks decrease in numbers. The first are worked and moderately fed. The second, destitute of taste for the most ordinary luxuries, are enabled by a little labour to indulge themselves to the uttermost in the vulgar sensualities of our nature; and the consequence is remarked by Americans to be as I have described it.

Still these are extreme and insulated instances. Let us take larger bodies, with the circumstances of whose lives we are familiar, and see whether the theory of Malthus explains the phenomena better than I can do, or so well. Look, my Lord, at the " Society of Friends," or "Quakers," as they were at first derisively called. This sect is probably the most opulent in proportion to its numbers of all the bodies of Dissenters. It keeps its own poor in so admirable a manner, that a destitute, or even apparently poor Quaker, is not to be seen-the members of this body almost universally marry, and yet not having been aided by accessions to their numbers by means of conversion to any extent, it is believed that the body has decreased during the last century. I cannot find that they have the means of a correct knowledge of their numbers at any stated periods, but this is their impression. Some may deny the decrease, but no one argues for any sensible increase. This might puzzle

Malthus, but I will take another body as an instance of the slowness of increase where men are properly fed. Of this body your Lordship has, I believe, some knowledge-I mean the body of the freemen or free burgesses of the town from which I now address your Lordship-Newcastleupon-Tyne. Here I have better data on which to proceed. The freemen of Newcastle, I need hardly tell your Lordship, have had, up to the commencement of the last half century, an almost entire and complete monopoly of the trade of this flourishing town. No non-freeman was, before that time, allowed to open a shop within the liberties of the town and county of Newcastle. Of many of the employments they enjoyed also a monopolythe corporate offices were filled by them alone. The election of members of Parliament being also vested in them, they exclusively had the enjoyment of almost all the local Government official situations, as well as of those under the corporation. They possessed property, both separately, as companies or guildries, and conjointly

they tenanted hospitals exclusively, and were in every possible way a favoured caste, enjoying all "the good things" of one of the richest corporations in England or any where else. Hence, without gross imprudence, no free burgess needed to be poor-all might be, and many were, prosperous and wealthy. There were two ways of obtaining the freedom of the town

inheritance and servitude—but as all the sons of a freeman were free by birth, they had ample means (according to Mr Malthus) for increasing their numbers. Strange to say, with all these aids, and with the extrinsic aid of the perpetual addition of freemen by servitude, they do not seem to have done so materially, at all events not during the last hundred-andtwenty years. The means I have of shewing this is by a reference to the books of the stewards of the companies, which give the poll on all the contested elections from the year 1710 inclusive. The extracts I have obtained through the kindness of my excellent friend their worthy secretary, and his are the calculations of the numbers actually voting. Before, however, going into these results, I shall show, from the same source, the probable proportion of the additions

Of these my friend remarks, "311 persons only were admitted. I do not know the proportion of the parties admitted by birth or servitude, but conclude they are in the same ratio as the claimants." Thus, then, it should seem that the additions by servitude have more than kept pace with those by birth. The chief cause of nonadmission is the inability or unwillingness of many to pay the Fees, which amount to about Eight Pounds—a heavy sum for a young man in narrow circumstances. This obstacle, however, generally disappears before contested elections, when those, whose claims are valid, become mysteriously possessed of the needful for " taking

350

597 claimants.

up their freedom," as it is called! The servitude, however, must be a bona fide apprenticeship of seven years; and the omission of the father to take up freedom bars the son, though the grandfather may have been free.

I shall now give the particulars of the polls at all the contested elections, from that of the year 1710, down to the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832. From these returns your Lordship will see that the number of votes givin in the election of 1722 is nearly equal to the numbers polled in the other subsequent great contests which occurred in 1741, in 1774, in 1777, and in 1780.

1820. The Hon. Mr Scott, Sir Matthew Ridley, Mr Ellison,

From all this it is evident, that though it is certain that the population of Newcastle-upon-Tyne has been steadily increasing, and from causes capable of being easily pointed out, the freemen or free burgesses, despite the aid of those acquiring freedom by apprenticeship, have not materially added to that increase. Yet, according to the notions of Malthus, this particular set of men, favourably situated as they have been as to worldly circumstances, ought to have been active agents in this increase. What, then, has here checked the "geometrical ratio?" "Vice, misery, or moral restraint?" Nothing of the kind. I can answer for it, that none of these have existed in any extraordinary degree for many years amongst the freemen of Newcastle.

I shall now, my Lord, attempt to show, by some more extended enquiries, how far these ideas of mine are borne out by national statistics, by a comparison of the known states of the population of countries or parts of countries, with those of other countries or parts of countries, comparing at the same time the modes of living in all and each. I shall endeavour to show this-And first, I would refer your Lordship generally to the state of the Highlands of Scotland, and to that of Ireland, and compare these states with that of Belgium.

The food of the Scotch Highlanders is, your Lordship knows, mostly oatmeal, fish, and potatoes, and other esculent vegetables. The food of the Irish (abundant as that country is in cattle) is, as we all know, much the same. In these countries, families of sixteen, eighteen, or twenty children, are quite common; and amongst the poor, unhappily the great mass of the people, eight, ten, or even a dozen children are universally to be met with. What the real average family amongst these classes, in these countries, actually is, I do not know; but I should calculate it at not less than six living children to each family. Contrast this with the rich pastoral country of the Netherlands, where flesh meat, and rich cheese, and milk, constitute the food of the inha

A single day.

800 only voted.*

bitants to a great extent. In these countries a family of half the number of a Highland or Irish family would be, and is looked at as a prodigy, and the father and mother would probably be presented to King Leopold as most meritoriously adding to the number of his lieges-without a thought of Malthus. This, however, is a general comparison, and I shall now go more methodically to work, and show how the calculated populations of various countries rise or fall according to the nature and quantity of their food.

A

The most striking and curious exemplification of the effects of the different modes of living upon population, is to be found, perhaps, in the statistics of the Russian empire, including, as it does, various races of people, living in climates the most different, upon soils the most opposite in quality, and all under one government, though foreign to each other in habits, modes of life, and language. The great area of the Russian empire, that is to say, all its Asiatic, and a large part of its European dominions, is inhabited by people the most truly pastoral of any existing in the world. Their wealth is cattle their exports the tallow, hides, and horns-their food the flesh. small portion of the Russian empire is, however, of a totally different character. The kingdom of Poland, and the provinces bordering upon it, are essentially corn countries, and hence the food of the people is totally different from that of the population of the rest of the immense empire of the Czars. Throughout the immense pastoral provinces, where the cattle are killed for the sake of the tallow and hides, the flesh, salted or frozen, is of course the food of the people, being so plentiful as to be almost valueless. This is apparent in the fact, that even in the capital, in St Petersburg itself, beef may always be had at a price hardly amounting to an English penny per b., and the very choicest meat at three halfpence, English, per lb., though the cattle are driven from a great distance for the supply of the capital; and frozen game and salt meats of all descriptions are plentiful and cheap in the extreme.