From 1753 to 1792, the increase was 104,636,882, or an annual advance of 2,682,997 inhabitants, or about 2½ per cent. per annum for thirty-nine years. During this period, the country enjoyed almost uninterrupted peace under the vigorous sway of Kienlung, and the unsettled regions of the south and west rapidly filled up.
From 1792 to 1812, the increase was 54,126,679, or an annual advance of 2,706,333—not quite one per cent. per annum—for twenty years. At the same rate of progress the present population would amount to over 450,000,000, and this might have been the case had not the Tai-ping rebellion reduced the numbers. An enumeration (No. 22), was published by the Russian Professor of Chinese Vassilivitch in 1868 as a translation from official documents. Foreigners have had greater opportunities for travel through the country, between the years 1840 to 1880, and have ascertained the enormous depopulation in some places caused by wars, short supplies of food in consequence of scarcity of laborers, famines, or brigandage, each adding its own power of destruction at different places and times. The conclusion will not completely satisfy any inquirer, but the population of the Empire cannot now reasonably be estimated as high as the census of 1812, by at least twenty-five millions. The last in the list of these censuses (No. 23), is added as an example of the efforts of intelligent persons residing in China to come to a definite and independent conclusion on this point from such data as they can obtain. The Imperial Customs’ Service has been able to command the best native assistance in their researches, and the table of population given above from the Gotha Almanac is the summary of what has been ascertained. The population of extra-provincial China is really unknown at present. Manchuria is put down at twelve millions by one author, and three or four millions, by another, without any official authority for either; and all those vast regions in Ílí and Tibet may easily be set down at from twelve to fifteen millions. To sum up, one must confess that if the Chinese censuses are worth but little, compared with those taken in European states, they are better than the guesses of foreigners who have never been in the country, or who have travelled only partially in it.
PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE IN THEIR FAVOR.
The Chinese are doubtless one of the most conceited nations on the earth, but with all their vanity, they have never bethought themselves of rating their population twenty-five or thirty per cent. higher than they suppose it to be, for the purpose of exalting themselves in the eyes of foreigners or in their own. Except in one case none of the estimates were presented to, or intended to be known by foreigners. The distances in li between places given in Chinese itineraries correspond very well with the real distances; the number of districts, towns, and villages in the departments and provinces, as stated in their local and general topographical works, agree with the actual examination, so far as it can be made: why should their censuses be charged with gross error, when, however much we may doubt them, we cannot disprove them, and the weight of evidence derived from actual observation rather confirms them than otherwise; and while their account of towns, villages, distances, etc., are unhesitatingly adopted until better can be obtained? Some discrepancies in the various tables are ascribable to foreigners, and some of the censuses are incomplete, or the year cannot be precisely fixed, both of which vitiate the deductions made from them as to the rate of increase. Some reasons for believing that the highest population ascribed to the Chinese Empire is not greater than the country can support, will first be stated, and the objections against receiving the censuses then considered.[153]
DENSITY OF POPULATIONS IN EUROPE AND CHINA.
The area of the Eighteen Provinces is rather imperfectly given at 1,348,870 square miles, and the average population, therefore, for the whole, in 1812, was 268 persons on every square mile; that of the nine eastern provinces in and near the Great Plain, comprising 502,192 square miles, or two-fifths of the whole, is 458 persons, and the nine southern and western provinces, constituting the other three-fifths, is 154 to a square mile. The surface and fertility of the country in these two portions differ so greatly, as to lead one to look for results like these. The areas of some European states and their population, are added to assist in making a comparison with China, and coming to a clearer idea about their relative density.
| States. | Area. | Population. | Average to sq. m. | Census of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| France | 204,092 | 36,905,788 | 182 | December, 1876. |
| Germany | 212,091 | 45,194,172 | 213 | December, 1880. |
| Great Britain | 121,608 | 35,246,562 | 289 | April, 1881. |
| Italy | 114,296 | 28,437,091 | 249 | December, 1879. |
| Holland | 20,497 | 4,060,580 | 198 | December, 1880. |
| Spain | 190,625 | 16,053,961 | 84 | December, 1877. |
| Japan | 160,474 | 34,338,479 | 213 | 1877. |
| Bengal | 156,200 | 68,750,747 | 440 | 1881. |
All these are regarded as well settled countries, but England and Bengal are the only ones which exceed that of China, taken as a whole, while none of them come up to the average of the eastern provinces. All of them, China included, fall far short, however, of the average population on a square mile of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, in the reigns of Abijah and Jeroboam, if the 1,200,000 men brought into the field by them can be taken as a ratio of the whole number of inhabitants; or if the accounts given by Josephus of the density in his day are trustworthy. In estimating the capabilities of these European countries to support a dense population, allowances must be made for roads, pasture-lands, and parks of noblemen, all of which afford little or no food.
In England and Wales, there are nearly twenty-nine millions of acres under cultivation, seventeen millions of which are pasture-lands, and only ten millions devoted to grain and vegetables; the other two millions consist of fallow-ground, hop-beds, etc. One author estimates that in England 42 acres in a hundred, and in Ireland 64, are pastures—a little more than half of the whole. There are, then, on the average about two acres of land for the support of each individual, or rather less than this, if the land required for the food of horses be subtracted. It has been calculated that eight men can be fed on the same amount of land that one horse requires; and that four acres of pasture-land will furnish no more food for man than one of ploughed land. The introduction of railroads has superseded the use of horses to such an extent that it is estimated there are only 200,000 horses now in England, instead of a million in 1830. If, therefore, one-half the land appropriated to pasture should be devoted to grain, and no more horses and dogs raised than a million of acres could support, England and Wales could easily maintain a population of more than four hundred to a square mile, supposing them to be willing to live on what the land and water can furnish.