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THERE are many ways of judging of the population and cultivation of any country. One of these is very frequently inferred from the other. As the food of men is generally derived from the earth on which they live, we can form some general notion of the extent to which the ground is cultivated, by knowing the numbers it sustains, and so, conversely, the number of consumers can sometimes be inferred from the quantity of product.

It is difficult, however, to find any sufficient data whereon to build these inferences. It is hard to ascertain, when the number of a people is known, in what proportions the various articles of their provision are distributed, and what proportion the quantity raised within their own territory bears to that which is imported.

One, accustomed to theory and speculation only, sees no difficulty in ascertaining all those circumstances of a country and people, reducible to the head of political economy, not by inference or calculation, but by actual inspection and enumera

VOL. III. NO. XVI.

tion. He sees no difficulty, for example, in discovering the number of people in a state; the number of its domestic animals; the number of acres in its territory; the kind and quantity of the products of those acres, by actually measuring and counting them. To him, these are points of so much curiosity, as well as use, that he thinks they would obtain his principal regard, were he the proprietor or governor of a state, and is consequently greatly astonished at the stupidity or indo lence of those actual governors or proprietors, by whom these points are overlooked or slighted.

When he observes that four centuries of power, wealth, civilization, and social order were suffered to pass away, before the government of England could prevail upon itself to make an actual numeration of the people, his surprize at national indolence is increased, or he begins to imagine that possibly there may be greater obstacles to the settlement of these important questions in practice, than there appear to be in speculation. And yet the number

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ing of the people in Great Britain, as well as in the American states, was found, in fact, to be no such tedious, expensive, or arduous undertaking.

Though there are half a score of other points about which political economists are anxious to be informed, the number of human heads seems to be the only point which the government of these two countries have thought worth their at tention. A project for numbering the domestic animals within the country would probably be laughed at by politicians. There are, however, several things to be said in justification of his curiosity, by one who is inquisitive on this head.

In the first place, as animal existence is necessarily connected with happiness or misery, it is not unworthy of a benevolent mind to regard the human population of a country, not merely as it is connected with trade, taxation, or defence, but as it shows the amount of happiness or misery that exists within a given space; so, as the lower animals are likewise susceptible of happiness and misery, though of a different kind, and, perhaps, in a less degree than men, their number and condition may reasonably be thought to deserve, on that account, some regard.

Secondly, as the lower animals are suffered to exist and multiply in a domestic state, merely as they are subservient to the subsistence, convenience, or pleasure of man, the knowledge of their number and condition is necessary to the knowledge of the manners and condition of the human population. They form a most important article in the sum of the wealth, the traffic, the enjoyment of the whole society.

Thirdly, as men are employed to clothe as well as to feed themselves, and as a part of the labour bestowed upon the culture of the ground, is employed to raise food immediately for those lower animals, the number and condition of these animals is necessary to be known, in order to enable ourselves to know to what

extent, and in what mode, the earth is cultivated.

There is likewise another view in which a speculative mind may be permitted to place this subject..... The number of a people is proportioned to the quantity of food raised from their own ground, or consumed among them: the earth produces, in the same space, different quantities of different kinds of food, and the same portion of ground maintains a less or greater number of people, according to the kind of product that is raised from it, and according as that product is applied immediately to our subsistence, as bread, or mediately, as flesh. The population is likewise proportioned to the degree in which the products of cultivation are applied to the support of quadrupeds, whose flesh is employed as food: this proportion is less, as the quantity of this product given to animals we do not eat is greater: this proportion is greater, as the quantity given to such animals is less.

Now it is not unnatural for such minds to dwell upon these proportions, and to make the actual state of things, in this respect, one criterion among others of the civilization of a people. As there is more happiness, more wealth, more power, among a hundred intelligent beings than among ten, all other circum. stances being equal, he is apt to conclude, that where there are two countries of equal extent and cultivation, that has greatly the advantage of the other, in every moral and political view, which supports the greatest number of men and women.

He, indeed, is generally inclined to maintain, that the more numerous nation has necessarily the advantage of the other, not only in point of number, but as to individual health, integrity, and comfort; that vegetable products, eaten in their simple state, not only maintain a greater number of people, but maintain them more easily and wholesomely, than when they are previously transmuted into the flesh of sheep and kine, or into certain fiery liquids called

beer or gin. He will, at least, be very positive in thinking, that people who apply their products to the maintenance of mankind, directly or indirectly, in the form of bread or of flesh, wiser than their neighbours who apply the same products to the support of quadrupeds, whose flesh is never eaten.

If such a one takes a survey of Great Britain, for example, one of the greatest and most enlightened nations in the world, he finds a very large portion of the surface under cultivation. The labour of men is continually employed to raise from it some kind of vegetable product. There is, indeed, a very large proportion, about one third, of the surface which is wholly desolate, though it be just as capable of culture as the rest; but, without enquiring into the cause of this strange abuse of territory, or computing the increase of wealth, power, and numbers which would flow from reducing this neglected space into the same condition with the rest, his eye passes on to the rolls of population. Here he finds the number of human beings about ten millions. Comparing this number with fifty millions of cultivated acres, he finds that there are five cultivated acres to one person.

He is well aware, however, that these five acres are by no means appropriated to raising bread for one man; that, on the contrary, there are a vast number of other animals which share with man the product of these fifty millions of acres. His curiosity pursuing this subject, soon discovers that there are three kinds of animals supported by the national industry, who either live in total idleness, or who contribute to the service of mankind in other ways than as food. These are cats, dogs, and horses.

The British government never deigned to make an actual enumeration of these animals; but, in consequence of a resolution to extract a revenue from them, enquiries were made and estimates formed, rather below than above the truth.

These calculations gave, in 1800, about 750,000 cats, 2,000,000 of dogs, 2,250,000 of horses; in all 5,000,000 of individuals, or half the whole number of human beings.

Of those animals who contribute to human accommodation by their milk, flesh, skin, or hair, the principal are sheep, kine, and swine.

Of sheep, the number usually computed is 20,000,000; of kine about 5,000,000; and of hogs about 10,000,000.

The cultivation, therefore, of Great Britain supports a population of 10,000,000 of men; but, in reality, it maintains 50,000,000 of considerable animals, including men. Now some of these animals are much more considerable in bulk than man, and require a much greater quantity of subsistence..... They all either consume the same kind of food which is proper to the human animal, or they subsist upon the product of ground, capable of producing food proper to man.

When a stranger is informed that the population of that small island amounts to fifty millions of persons, he is astonished at the number, and proceeds to build large inferences as to the power and felicity of a community so numerous. But how are his feelings and notions changed when he is informed that, by the caprice of custom, only one fifth of this number are men, and that the rest are four-footed beasts, irrational and mute.

When he enquires into the motives of the people for dividing their subsistence with so large a number of the lower animals, and the uses of swine, sheep, and cattle are pointed out to him, his disapprobation, though not wholly removed, will be somewhat lessened; but when horses are described, and he is told that they are never used as food, but merely to drag or to carry men and commodities from place to place, to swell idle pomp and parade, or to furnish amusement to the rich, his astonishment will be raised to a high pitch.

All the parts of every human se

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