'The examples of the corporation of Durham and Richmond in Yorkshire are adduced to the same effect; but we need not go so far north for corroborative evidence of the same class of facts. In the corporation of London, all the children of a citizen, whether male or female, enjoy the right of freedom by inheritance; and as many of the exclusive privileges of this body have not yet been done away, women still exercise in the city various avocations in their own name (such, for instance, as the trade of a town carman), from which the rest of the inhabitants of the metropolis, non-freemen, are excluded. Until recently, the freedom of the corporation of London was essential to a share in the administration of revenues amounting to upwards of a million per annum, and is still indispensable to a large portion of them. We may reasonably conclude that it was an object of some importance to the ancient citizens of London to keep the patronage connected with such large funds in their own hands, or to leave it in the hands of their own posterity. This object, however, has been so entirely defeated, that if we now inquire into the origin of the present holders of the good things in the gift of the London corporation and the trading companies, we find they are nearly all north countrymen, who have elbowed their way into the city from Scotland or the provinces, and that the descendants of such men as Sir William Walworth and Sir Thomas Gresham are nowhere to be found.
'During the forty years from 1794 to 1833, the admissions by patrimony to the freedom of the corporation of London were only 7794 out of a total of 40,221 admitted—a third of the number having been strangers who purchased their freedom, and one-half sons of strangers obtaining their freedom by apprenticeship.'
Mr Doubleday's explanation of these phenomena is to the effect, that it is not misery, but comfort, which deadens the principle of increase. It is notorious that the poorest parents have, as a general rule, the greatest number of children. Only feed people on potatoes and salt, oatmeal-porridge, or any other plain fare, and let them at the same time maintain a struggle to get even that, and sure enough their firesides, or the places where the fire should be, will be garnished by as plenteous a crop of youngsters as you could wish to behold! How these children are fed it is often so difficult to comprehend, that one is almost driven to the conclusion that they somehow live and have strength to romp about on the mere element—fresh air. It is very clear that nature abhors all sorts of codling and pampering:—
'It is a fact, admitted by all gardeners as well as botanists,' says Mr Doubleday, 'that if a tree, plant, or flower be placed in a mould either naturally or artificially made too rich for it, a plethoric state is produced, and fruitfulness ceases. In trees, the effect of strong manures and over-rich soils is, that they run to superfluous wood, blossom irregularly, and chiefly at the extremities of the outer branches, and almost, or entirely, cease to bear fruit. With flowering shrubs and flowers the effect is, first, that the flower becomes double, and loses its power of producing seed; next, it ceases almost even to flower. If the application of the stimulus of manure is carried still further, flowers and plants become diseased in the extreme, and speedily die; thus, by this wise provision of Providence, the transmission of disease (the certain consequence of the highly-plethoric state, whether in plants, animals, or in mankind) is guarded against, and the species shielded from danger on the side of plenty. In order to remedy this state when accidentally produced, gardeners and florists are accustomed, by various devices, to produce the opposite, or deplethoric state; this they peculiarly denominate "giving a check." In other words, they put the species in danger in order to produce a corresponding determined effort of nature to insure its perpetuation—and the end is invariably attained. Thus, in order to make fruit-trees bear plentifully, gardeners delay, or impede, the rising of the sap, by cutting rings in the bark round the tree. This, to the tree, is the production of a state of depletion, and the abundance of fruit is the effort of nature to counteract the danger. The fig, when grown in this climate, is particularly liable to drop its fruit when half-matured. This, gardeners now find, can be prevented by pruning the tree so severely as to give it a check; or, if grown in a pot, by cutting a few inches from its roots all round, so as to produce the same effect. The result is, that the tree retains, and carefully matures, its fruit. In like manner, when a gardener wishes to save seed from a gourd or cucumber, he does not give the plant an extra quantity of manure or warmth. He does just the contrary: he subjects it to some hardship, and takes the fruit that is least fine-looking, foreknowing it will be filled with seed whilst the finest fruit are nearly destitute. Upon the same principle, it is a known fact, that after severe and long winters, the harvests are correspondingly rapid and abundant. Vines bear most luxuriantly after being severely tried by frost; and grass springs in the same extraordinary manner. After the long and trying winter of 1836-37, when the snow lay upon the ground in the northern counties until June, the spring of grass was so wonderful as to cause several minute experiments by various persons. The result was, that in a single night of twelve hours the blade of grass was ascertained frequently to have advanced full three-quarters of an inch; and wheat and other grain progressed in a similar manner.'
It is shown by facts, that in the animal economy a low physical state, of course along with air and exercise, is equally favourable. In proportion, therefore, as conditions adverse to this simple principle are encouraged, so will the ratio of increase be limited. Indulgent idleness, want of out-door exercise, codling with cordials, dosing with medicines, tight-lacing, late hours, mental excitement, and fifty other things, induce the physical weakness and irritability which renders the production of offspring an impossibility. Causes of this kind, operating along with those artificial restraints, the validity of which Malthus is so far right in recognising, are mainly concerned in keeping population within bounds. It would then appear, that so long as there is an abject, struggling poor, ignorant and ill-fed, there will be a vigorous growth, a dangerous population—dangerous, because redundant as respects their capacity and will to work. On the other hand, by an universal spread of education, by the cultivation of rational tastes and habits, and by the simple mode of living which such tastes would engender, there will ensue something like a medium between a relatively-redundant and a comparative extinction of population.
[THE IRISH BARON.]
AN ANECDOTE OF REAL LIFE.
At the beginning of the present century a certain regiment was ordered to Ireland, and was very soon dispersed over various districts. One detachment was sent to Ballybrag, and when the officer in command and his two subalterns met at the wretched pothouse (for it was scarcely an inn) where they were to mess, and began to discuss their prospects of amusement, they were quite thrown out. There was no visiting, no hunting, no shooting, no billiard-table, no horses to ride, no milliners to flirt with, not so much as even 'a bridge to spit over.' In those days military men had rarely a literary turn, but books became of so much importance, that they read over the few they possessed, and sent to the nearest town, which was very distant, for more. Active amusement, however, was what they chiefly desired; and one evening the countenances of all three became animated, during a listless ramble, at the sight of a boy in a crownless hat, torn coat, and nether integuments held on by a single button; he was shouting forth 'The County Tyrone,' as he dangled a brace of trout in one hand, and switched the air with a long wand he held in the other, his curly hair blowing over his bright rosy countenance in the fresh breeze, the picture of health and careless happiness.
'Hollo! my fine fellow! where did you catch these trout?'