to lifts for five years, ending in 1784, the mortality was only 1 in 37. During the same periods, the births were to the deaths as 131 to 100. In Silefia the mortality from 1781 to 1784 was I in 30; and the births to deaths as 128 to 100. In Gelderland the mortality from 1776 to 1781 was I in 27, and the births I in 26. These are the two provinces of the monarchy in which the mortality is the greateft. In fome others it is very small. From 1781 to 1784 the average mortality in Neufchatel and Ballengin was only 1 in 44, and the births 1 in 31. In the principality of Halberstadtz, from 1778 to 1784, the mortality was ftill lefs, being only 1 in 45 or 46, and the proportion of births to deaths 137 to 100.

b

The general conclufion that Crome draws is, that the states of Europe may be divided into three claffes, to which a different measure of mortality ought to be applied. In the richest and most populous ftates, where the inhabitants of the towns are to the inhabitants of the country in fo high a proportion as i to 3, the mortality may be taken as I in I in 30. In thofe countries which are in a middle ftate with regard to population and cultivation, the

Crome, über die Bevölkerung der Europaifch. Staat.

P. 120.

bld. P. 122. .

mortality

mortality may be confidered as 1 in 32. And in the thinly-peopled northern states, Suffmilch's proportion of 1 in 36 may be applied."

These proportions feem to make the general mortality too great, even after allowing epidemic years to have their full effect in the calculations. The improved habits of cleanliness, which appear to have prevailed of late years in most of the towns of Europe, have probably, in point of falubrity, more than counterbalanced their increased size.

• Crome's Europaischen Staaten, p. 127.

CHAP. V.

Of the Checks to Population in Switzerland.

THE fituation of Switzerland is in many refpects fo different from the other ftates of Europe; and fome of the facts that have been collected refpecting it are fo curious, and tend fo trongly to illuftrate the general principles of this work, that it seems to merit a feparate confideration.

About 35 or 40 years ago, a great and fudden alarm appears to have prevailed in Switzerland, refpecting the depopulation of the country; and the tranfactions of the Economical Society of Berne, which had been established fome years before, were crowded with papers deploring the decay of industry, arts, agriculture, and manufactures, and the imminent danger of a total want of people. The greater part of these writers confidered the depopulation of the country as a fact fo obvious, as not to require proof. They employed themselves, therefore,

chiefly

chiefly in propofing remedies, and among others, the importation of midwives, the establishment of foundling hofpitals, the portioning of young virgins, the prevention of emigration, and the encouragement of foreign fettlers."

A paper containing very valuable materials was, however, about this time published by a Monf. Muret, minister of Vevey, who, before he proceeded to point out remedies, thought it neceffary to substantiate the existence of the evil. He made a very laborious and careful research into the registers of different parishes, up to the time of their first establishment, and compared the number of births, which had taken place during three different periods of 70 years each, the first ending in 1620, the second in 1690, and the third in 1760. Finding, upon this comparison, that the number of births was rather lefs in the fecond than in the first period, (and by the help of supposing some omiffions in the fecond period, and fome redundances in the third,) that the number of births in the third was alfo less than in the fecond, he confidered the evidence for a continued depopulation of

* See the different Memoirs for the year 1766. Mémoires, &c. par la Société Economique de Berne. Année 1766, première partie, p. 15 et feq. octavo. Berne.

the

the country from the year 1550 as incontrovertible.

Admitting all the premises, the conclufion is not perhaps fo certain, as he imagined it to be: and from other facts which appear in his memoir, I am strongly disposed to believe, that Switzerland, during this period, came under the cafe fuppofed in the last chapter; and that the improving habits of the people with respect to prudence, cleanliness, &c., had added gradually to the general healthiness of the country, and by enabling them to rear up to manhood a greater proportion of their children, had furnished the requifite increase of population with a fmaller number of births. Of course, the proportion of annual births to the whole population, in the latter period, would be less than in the former.

From accurate calculations of M. Muret, it appears, that during the last period the mortality was extraordinarily small, and the proportion of children reared from infancy to puberty extraordinarily great. In the former periods, this could not have been the cafe in the fame degree.* M. Muret himself obferves, that "The ancient

a

Mémoires, &c. par la Société Economique de Berne,