According therefore to circumstances, and in consistence with these principles, I would encourage marriage by taking the children off the hands of their parents. Where marriage succeeds the worst, if it happens to be in a very low class, great encouragement should be given to it: perhaps the whole should be taken care of. Certain trades may be loaded with one child, others with two, and so progressively. But of this, more in another place. I beg it may not here be imagined that I propose, that the whole of the lower classes of people are to marry and propagate, and that the state is to feed all their offspring. My view extends no farther, than to be assured of having such a number of children yearly taken care of as shall answer the multiplication proposed, and that these be proportionally raised from each class, and from each part of the country, and produced from marriages protected by the state, distinguished from the others, which under a free government must always be found exposed to the inconveniencies of want and misery. To guard against such evils ought to be another object of public care. Hospitals for foundlings are an admirable institution; and colonies are an outlet for superfluous inhabitants. But I insensibly enter into a detail which exceeds my plan. To lay down a scheme, you must suppose a particular state perfectly known. This lies beyond my reach, and therefore I shall go no farther, but illustrate what I have said, by some observations and reflections which seem analogous to the subject.
I have not here proposed plans of multiplication inconsistent with the spirit of the nations with which I am a little acquainted; nor with the religion professed in Europe, for many reasons, obvious to any rational man. But principally, because, I believe, it will be found, that a sufficient abundance of children are born already; and that we have neither occasion for concubinage, nor polygamy, to increase their numbers. But we want a right method of taking care of those we have, in order to produce a multiplication proportioned to the possibility of our providing nourishment and employment. I have therefore proposed, that a statesman, well informed of the situation of his people, the state of every class, the number of marriages found in each, should say, let there be so many marriages authorised in every class, distributed in a certain proportion for every parish, city, burrow, &c. in the country; let rules be laid down to direct a preference, in case of a competition, between different couples; and let the consequence of this approbation be, to relieve the parents of all children above a certain number, as has been said. I propose no new limitations upon marriage, because I am a friend to liberty, and because such limitations would shock the spirit of the times. I therefore would strongly recommend hospitals for foundlings over all the country; and still more strongly the frugal maintenance of children in such hospitals, and their being bred up early to fill and recruit the lowest classes of the people.
CHAP. XIII.
Continuation of the same Subject, with regard to the Necessity of having exact Lists of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, for every Class of Inhabitants in a modern Society.
Mr. Derham has furnished some tables which shew the proportion between marriages and births in England, to be as 1 to 4; that of births to burials as 1 12⁄100to 1: from which it appears that multiplication there goes on, though slowly: a mark of youth and vigour. Dr. Davenant values the augmentation at 9000 a year. Could matters be kept at that standard, I should prefer it by far to a more rapid multiplication: it amounts to about a million in a century (without entering into accumulations or exact calculations) and the longer youth is preserved so much the better. A rapid multiplication will stop at some period, and that stop, which marks distress, must produce great inconveniencies.
These calculations extracted from very lame vouchers, shew how necessary it is to have authentic recapitulations: since, lame as they are, it is from these and the like, that Dr. Halley, and others, have calculated the value of annuities, which (at a time when all the states of Europe are borrowing money at the expence of every man’s private industry or property) ought to be valued at their real worth. Now, in all these calculations of mortality, it appears that what we have called the abuse of marriage or procreation is included.
If it be true, as I think it is, from what I have seen and observed, that numbers, especially of children, among the lower classes, perish from the effects of indigence; either directly by want of food, or by diseases contracted gradually from the want of convenient ease; and that others perish for want of care, when the slightest assistance of a surgeon to let them blood, would be sufficient to preserve them against the inflammatory distempers to which they are chiefly exposed.
If these things are so, must we not infer, that calculations formed upon a conclusion drawn from the births and deaths of mankind in general, cannot possibly be so exact as if the like were drawn from those of every class of inhabitants taken separately.
It may here be answered, that among the rich and easy, there are found diseases which sweep off numbers, in as great a proportion as other distempers do of the poor: that we see very large families brought up among the lowest classes, while a great man has all the pains in the world to preserve a young boy from the wreck of a number of children.
All this I agree may be true; but I should be glad to see in what proportion it is so, and to be certain of the fact. I want to know the diseases of the rich and of the poor; I want to have as particular details of the births and deaths of every class, as I can have of those of the cities of Paris, London, or Breslaw. I want to know from what parents those multitudes of poor which I find every where are sprung; and most of all to have such accounts from different countries, where different manners prevail. For no just conclusion can be drawn from the comparison of facts, without examining circumstances. The most barren class in one country, may be the most fruitful in another. As an example of this, let any one compare the state of marriage among the footmen of London and of Paris.