[242-4] Weyland, Principles of Population and Production, 1816, 25 ff.
[242-5] In Paris the mortality is greater in the arrondissements in proportion to their poverty, of which the relative numbers of untaxed dwellings afford a criterion. According to this, between 1822 and 1826,
| The Arrondissement | Had a yearly population mortality of 1 in every | Locations non imposées.[TN 71] |
| II, | 71 | 0.07 |
| III, | 67 | 0.11 |
| I, | 66 | 0.11 |
| IV, | 62 | 0.15 |
| XI, | 61 | 0.19 |
| VI, | 58 | 0.21 |
| V, | 64 | 0.22 |
| VII, | 59 | 0.22 |
| X, | 49 | 0.23 |
| IX, | 50 | 0.31 |
| VIII, | 46 | 0.32 |
| XII, | 44 | 0.38 |
Villermé, in the Journal des Econ., Novbr. 1853. The average house-rent in arrondissement II, amounted to 605 francs per annum; in III, to 426; in I, to 498; in IX, to 172; in VIII, to 173; in XII, to 148 francs. Doctor Holland divided all the streets in Manchester into three classes, and each class, in turn, into three sub-classes, according to the qualities of the dwellings. The yearly mortality in I a was 1:51; in I b = 1:45; I c = 36; II a = 1:55; II b = 1:38; III c = 1:25. (Report of Inquiry into the State of large Towns and Populous Districts, 1843.)
[242-6] In Prussia, the Jewish population, between 1822 and 1840, increased 34½ per cent.; the Christians only 28½ per cent.; although among the Jews there was only one marriage a year in every 139, and one birth in every 28; among the Christians, in every 112 and 25. This is accounted for, mainly by the favorable circumstances that Jewish mothers leave their homes seldomer to work outside, and thereby devote more attention, even in the lower classes, to the care of their children.
[242-7] Wappäus, Allg. Bevölkerungsstatistik, I, 315. In Thurgau, in 1815, the mortality was = 2,143, in 1817 = 3,440; in Luzerne, in 1820 = 1,543, in 1817 = 3,511. (Bernouilli, Populationistik, 219.) And so in London between 1601 and 1800, when the five dearest and five cheapest years of each decade are taken together, the aggregate mortality in the dearest was 1,971,076, in the cheapest, 1,830,835. (Farr, in the Statist. Journal, 1846, 163 ff.) The rule did not apply to the time 1801-1820; but it did again to the time 1821-1840 (l. c., 174). Compare Messance, Recherches sur la Population, 311; Roscher, Kornhandel und Theuerungspolitik, 54 ff. When scarcity continues a longer time, the mortality sometimes decreases on account of the largely diminished number of small children. In Lancashire, the number of deaths during the commercial crisis, 1846-47, was 36 per cent. greater than the average of the three last preceding years; in 1857-8 it was 11.9 per cent. greater. (Ausland, 1862, No. 44.)
[242-8] Malthus uses the word "preventive check," while he calls the repressive counter-tendencies "positive." R. Mohl, Polizeiwissenschaft, I, 88, speaks of preventive and destructive causes. Anteriorly and subsequently operating causes. (Knapp).
[242-9] Hence the infinite productiveness of irrational organisms is limited only by their mutual struggle for the means of support. That which cannot live there dies. "In this case there can be no artificial increase of food, and no prudential restraint from marriage." (Darwin, Origin of species, 4 ed. 1866, 73.) Compare B. Franklin, Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind, § 21. Lamennais, indeed, asserts that no plant and no animal takes away food from any other; that the earth has room for all!
[242-10] The rule that population tends to extend everywhere as far as the means of subsistence will permit, Sismondi, N. Principes, VII, ch. 3, has taken occasion to ridicule, basing himself on the example of the Montmorency family. This family has, notoriously, always lived in superabundance, and is, notwithstanding, on the verge of extinction. Sismondi here forgets the relativity of the idea "means of subsistence." Persons occupying an exalted social position not only think that they want more in this respect, but they are wont in forming marriage contracts to use the greatest and frequently exaggerated caution. Hence it is that families of this rank become, relatively speaking, frequently extinct; and, moreover, such a fact is here most frequently taken notice of. Sadler, Law of Population, 1830, infers from the frequent extinction of English noble families, that wealth leads to sterility; and, on the other hand, poverty (but not famine!) to prolificacy; and Doubleday's (True Law of Population, 12 ff.) suggestion, in explanation hereof, that over-fed animals and over-manured plants are sterile, as ably refuted in the Edinburg Rev., LI. It is there shown that the marriages of the English peers are fruitful above the average; that their extinction is partly due to the fact that the younger sons seldom married, and that hence there is a lack of collateral relations. But, in great part, such extinction is only apparent; since such a family is said to be extinct when only the male stem is extinct. The French nobility, from the 9th to the 11th century, continually increased in number. After this, the succession of females and cases of extinction became more frequent, because the nobility, in order to keep their estates together, began to not desire many sons. Sismondi, Hist. des Français, V, 182. Compare Benoiston de Châteauneuf,[TN 72] De la Durée des Familles[TN 73] nobles en France, in the proceedings of the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques, II, 792 ff. Besides, between 1611 and 1819, 763 English baronet families became actually extinct, 653 continued to exist, and 139 had been raised to the peerage; an average of from 3 to 4 peer families became extinct yearly. (Statist. Journal, 1869, 224.) There were, about 1569 2,219 Venetian nobili; in 1581, 1,843 (Daru, VI, 240 ff.); in Addison's time (1705), only 1,500. On the decrease of the Roman patricians, see Dionys., Hal., I, 85; Tacit., Ann., XI, 25; on that of the Spartan knights: Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, II, 407 ff.; of the ehrbaren Geschlechter, at Nürnberg: Hegel, N. Stadtchroniken, 1862, 214. Compare, also, Westminster Rev., Oct., 1849.
[242-11] How, in England, not only many distinguished persons, but also their servants, are kept from marriage in this way, because they are sure of not being able to satisfy the wants of their bachelorhood as fathers of families, see in Malthus, P. of P., II, ch. 8. A description of the general misery which would result if all men consumed only that which was physically indispensable, in Senior, Outlines, 39.