[245-12] Compare J. Graunt, Natural and Political Observations on the Bills of Mortality (1662). During the course of the 19th century, according to averages made from long series of years, there were, for every 1,000 girls born alive in Lombardy, 1,070 boys; in Bohemia, 1,062; in France, 1,058; in Holland, 1,057; in Saxony, 1,056; in Belgium, 1,052; in England, 1,050; in Prussia,[TN 81] 1,048. On the whole, the ratio in 70,000,000 children born alive was as 100 : 105.83. The excess of males over females in bastards is smaller than in the case of legitimate children, in towns than in the country. Everything considered, the number of boys born seems to be greater than the number of girls in proportion as the father is in advance of his wife in years. Compare Sadler, Law of Population, II, 343. Hofacker, Ueber die Eigenschaften die sich vererben, 51 ff. Wappäus, Allg. Bevölkerungstatistik, II, 151, 160 ff., 306 ff. Per contra, we have Legoyt's supposition that the number of boys born is greater in proportion as the parents are more nearly of an age: Statistique comparée, 500.
[245-13] According to the censuses between 1856 and 1861, there are for every 1,000 men in Belgium 994 women; in Austria, 1,004; in Prussia, 1,004; in France, 1,001; in England, 1,039; in Holland, 1,038. The majority of the latter seems to have diminished everywhere the greater the distance in time from the most recent great wars; and to belong only to those age-classes which were coeval with those wars. (Preuss. amtliche Tabellen für 1849, I, 292.) In the United States there were, 1800-1844, for every 1,000 women, 1,033-1,050 men; mainly accounted for by large immigration. Between 1819 and 1855 the immigration was 2,713,391 men and 1,720,305 women. (W. Bromwell, History of Immigration to the United States, New York, 1856.) In Switzerland, among the population belonging to the cantons, there were for every 1,000 men, 1,038 women; among the foreign Swiss, 970; among foreigners, 650. (Bernouilli, Populationistik, 31.) Compare Horn, loc. cit., I, 105 ff., who supposes a natural principle of equilibrium: the greater the preponderance of the number of women, the more does it happen that only the younger women are married; the greater consequently the difference between the ages of the married couple, and the more probable the birth of boys, and vice versa. (115 ff.)
[245-14] Compare Catlin, N. American Indians, I, 118 ff. Even Strabo believed that among the Median mountaineers each man had five wives! (XI, 526.)
[245-15] Concerning Solomon's 700 wives and 300 concubines, see I Kings, 11, 3; according to the Canticle of Canticles, only 60 wives and 80 concubines. According to Mirkhond and Khondemir, there was in the place in which the Sassand shah resided, 3,000 women of the harem and 12,000 female slaves. Polygamy among the latter class is seldom possible or thought of. Of 2,800 Moslems in Bombay, only 100 lived in polygamy, and only 5 had three wives each. (Ritter, Erdkunde, 1088.) I lay no weight here on the assertion so frequently repeated of travelers in the east, that more girls than boys are born there; for the reason that there is there no real statistics, and that the infidel travelers can be permitted few glimpses into the secrecy of family life. Lady Sheil indeed assures us that in Persia itself the opinion prevails that there are a great many more women than men. Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia, 1855. Similar pretense among the Mormons.
[245-16] We find, even on Egyptian temples, pictures representing the castration of prisoners. Franck, in the Mémoires sur l'Egypte, IV, 126. On Babylon, see Hellanicus, apud. Donat. ad Terent. Eunuch., I, 2, 87. This province, besides Assyria (the ancient seat of sultan glory), delivered 500 castrated boys per annum to the king of Persia. (Herodot., III, 92.) Of the califs, Soliman is said to be the first (at the beginning of the 8th century) who had his harem superintended by eunuchs; a very sensual master who frequently changed his wives. (Reiske Z. Abulfeda, I, 109 ff.; Weil, Gesch. der Kalifen, I, 573.) At an audience which the calif Moktadir gave to a Byzantine ambassador, there appeared 4,000 white and 3,000 black eunuchs. (Rehm., Gesch. des Mittelalters, I, 2, 32.) In the harems of the present Persian persons of rank, there are usually from 6 to 8 eunuchs. Rosenmüller, Altes und Neues Morgenland, IV, 290. In Upper Egypt, the castration of handsome boys by monks (!) is a regular trade. About 2 per cent. die in consequence of the operation, the others rise in consequence in price from 200-300 to 1,000 piasters. (Ritter, Erdkunde, I, 548.) In the Frankish middle age, the merchants of Verdun castrated persons to sell them in Spain. Compare Liutprand, Hist., VI, 3, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital., II, 1, 470.
HISTORY OF POPULATION.—IN HIGHLY CIVILIZED TIMES.
The conditions of population among mature and flourishing nations is characterized by this, that the moral and rational preventive tendencies counter to over-population decidedly preponderate. Here so much value is attached to the life, and to the healthy and comfortable life of human beings already in existence that even the majority of the lower classes take care to bring no more children into the world than can be properly supported, nor to bring them into being in advance of food. Here, too, mortality is relatively small, which when population is stationary is found in connection with a higher average duration of human life.[246-1] While among savage and semi-savage nations, travelers are struck by no phenomenon as much as by the total absence of old men,[246-2] in most European nations the average duration of life has, during the last centuries, seemed to noticeably increase. In France, for instance, between 1771 and 1780, on a population of 29,000,000 at most, there were as many deaths as on 35,000,000 between 1844 and 1853.[246-3] In Sweden, the classic land of statistics relating to population, mortality from 1749 to 1855 had diminished 0.107 per cent. per annum.[246-4] [246-5]
No reasonable man considers mere living the highest good; but, from an average prolongation of life, we may with great probability infer an improvement in the means of subsistence, in hygienic measures, etc., even for the lower classes, who everywhere constitute the great majority of the population. Aisance est vitalité!—at least on the supposition that morality remains the same.[246-6] How great may not have been the effect, for instance, of the healthier mode of the building of modern cities, of the disappearance of the greater number of fortifications etc., the more rational character of the healing art, the extension of vaccination,[246-7] the hygienic measures adopted by governments,[246-8] the better care of the poor and especially the asylums for small children! The modern system of agriculture and of the corn trade make famines less destructive of life.[246-9] (§ 115). The modern quarantine-system has protected us entirely against a number of plagues; and the worst epidemics of our day cannot be compared with those of earlier periods or in less civilized countries. In the second half of the 17th century, it was estimated in London that a plague would occur once in every 20 years, each of which swept away one-fifth of the entire population.[246-10] And in that very city the annual mortality between 1740 and 1750 varied three-fifths, during the second half of the 18th century only one-third, during the 19th century only one-fifth in the same decade; a clear proof of the diminished fatality of epidemics.[246-11] [246-12]
[246-1] The so-called Populationistikers are wont to distinguish between the average and probable duration of life (vie moyenne—vie probable); and understand by the former the number of years which, on an average, have been accorded to one deceased; by the latter, the number of years after the expiration of which one-half of a given number of human beings have disappeared. If x deceased persons have lived an aggregate of s years, their average duration of life = s/x. In the case of a whole people, indeed, even the many-years' average of the duration of life of those deceased expresses the true average duration of life only when (a rare case) the aggregate population remains stationary. For, when the population is increasing, the average age of the deceased is smaller than the average duration of life, and, when population is decreasing, larger. In the saddest case of all, when there are no births whatever, and the nation is gradually dying out, there would be an increase from year to year of the average age. In all such cases, strictly speaking, only the actual observation and following up of those born, until they die; can afford a safe result. This is Hermann's method, introduced into Bavaria since 1835. Compare the XIII. and XVII. numbers of the official Bavarian statistics with G. Meyer's criticism in Hildebrand's Jahrbüchern, 1867, I. And indeed Hopf, Preuss. Statist. Zeitschr., says that a complete table of mortality can be made, according to the best method, only after centuries of observation.