Dr. Twiss thinks that this increase is to be attributed to the system of subletting, and the increase of oats and barley, which not having resulted from an improved system of tillage, but rather from turning up improvidently old pasture land, has only served to stimulate population unduly--a little consideration will satisfy any thoughtful reader who has taken the trouble to understand the theory of the True Law, that the excess of the population of Connaught over the comparatively slow progression in Leinster is to be attributed not to a too plentiful supply of oats and barley, which they are not permitted to consume, but to a deficiency in the quantity, and in a deterioration in the quality of the only food which is within their reach. A passage, in the following page, which is a quotation from the evidence of Dr. Kelly, late Roman-catholic Archbishop of Tuam, before the select committee of the House of Commons in 1830, which is introduced by Dr. Twiss to account for the depressed condition of the people, lays open at the same time the cause of their excessive fecundity. Under the Conacre System, which is carried to the greatest extent in Connaught, the occupiers of the larger farms sublet, to the 'peasants or cottiers, small slips of land, varying from a perch to half an acre for a single season, to be planted with potatoes, or wheat crops. Old grass land is frequently let out in this manner, and the surface is allowed to be pared and burnt for manure. The rent exacted is enormous, sometimes, according to the 'evidence before the agricultural committee of 1833, amounting to 127. or 137. per acre. Potatoes are usually first planted on 'conacre land, and a succession of ten or a dozen corn crops follow!-so that there can be no improvement in the soil; on the contrary, nothing but its extraordinary natural fertility could support such destructive treatment. When, at last, the soil is incapable of producing anything, it is left to recover itself by the action of the rain and atmosphere on its elements.'

This is, for the most part, the social condition of unhappy Ireland, which has nothing whatever to do with Malthus's geometrical or arithmetical progression. It is the fearful result of misgovernment. Providence!-destiny-They are not to blame. There it is, that degraded, oppressed, starving humanity puts forth its expiring energy, and, in its struggle to live, multiplies its children to be cut off by famine, disease and premature decay. If to the splitting of land, as Mr. M'Culloch maintains, the rapid increase of population in Ireland is to be attributed, it is not because it is productive of plenty to the miserable tenants, but, on the contrary, because it reduces them chiefly, if not entirely, to a potato and water regimen. The estimated population at various periods, from 1695 to 1831, proves that, in the space of 130 years, the population of Ireland has more than quadrupled

itself, and that it has increased as distress and poverty and want of food increased, with an accelerated velocity, as if the pressure caused by its own density urged it forward. The proportion of the people to the square British league upon the total area of the country is held to consist, by one estimate, as ordered by Parliament, of 19,441,944 statute acres, and by another of 20,399,608 statute acres. Its area in square British miles has been calculated at 31,875 square miles; and by Wakefield and Arrowsmith, at 32,201 square miles. Thirty-two thousand, in round numbers, is probably near the truth. Reducing this to square leagues, and dividing the population by these numbers, the result is as nearly as possible two thousand three hundred and ninety-one persons to the square British league; a population rivalling those of India and China. The uncultivated land, bog, and lake, being to the cultivated land as follows, in round numbers, about six to fourteen:

Total in statute acres.
20,399,608.

Cultivated. Mountain and bog. Lakes. 14,603,473. 5,340,736. 455,399. When to this we add the fact, that the cultivation of Ireland, owing to the poverty and ignorance of the inhabitants, is miserably defective, this result is certainly extraordinary.

Turning to England, the author remarks- England, perhaps, of all countries of the globe, exhibits phenomena the most puzzling to an inquiry of the nature of that which forms the subject of this treatise. Manifesting, as she does, all the signs of ex'ternal wealth and power, these manifestations are yet accom'panied by symptoms indicating a situation the reverse of prosperity; and he expresses his opinion, that the condition of the majority of the English people has, for a series of years, been deteriorating, and still continues to deteriorate; and that this is, a consequence, according to the theory of population he has laid down. Of the truth of the fact, there can be no reasonable doubt. As taxation has increased, the poor rates have grown with it; and with these two a deterioration in the people's living. The result is that, in 1845, we have a pauper surplus' population fed on oatmeal, and rarely tasting beer or animal food, that fills our legislators with dismay, and this in a country where, a few centuries ago, (not three,) the same legislature was equally alarmed by a decay in population! and yet there has been no lack of Mr. Malthus's checks-vice and misery; nor have marriages increased in any sufficient degree to prove that the improvidence of the poor, in this respect, has added to the evil. Demonstrations to the contrary are furnished by tables drawn up by Mr. Sadler, which prove that when provisions are dear, marriages decrease, and births increase; when cheap, that marriages increase, but the conceptions are fewer. This striking fact has been recently

borne out by the tables of Dr. Watt upon the vital statistics of the city of Glasgow, by Mr. Chadwick in the Appendix to his Report on the State of the Poor, and their Sanitary Condition,' and in the Returns of the Registrar of births, marriages, and deaths.' The evidence afforded by these documents is strong and incontrovertible. Dr. Watt's treatise on 'Population and Corn Laws' we have not seen, but derive our knowledge of its contents from the Glasgow Argus,' the editor of which seems to have paid considerable attention to the subject generally, and to Mr. Doubleday's theory in particular. He says

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'With regard to the very different principles laid down by Mr. Malthus, which for so long a period held sway over the minds of political economists, every successive return of the numbers of the population shows, we think, their incorrectness. Ever since he wrote, it has been the fashion to complain of the improvidence of the poor, and to accuse them of rushing heedlessly into marriage upon the mere supposition, which was universally believed to be true, that the number of marriages was always greatest in the seasons of distress and scarcity. The very reverse is proved to be the fact. We saw from Dr. Watt's tables that it was not true of Glasgow, and we now find that it is not true of England. We find also that it is not true of Ireland. This accusation of the poorer classes was held to be more easy of proof in the latter country than anywhere else. But the registrar-general shows that it was altogether erroneous. He takes the details of the Irish census of 1841, from which it appears that, of 1,643,704, aged 17 to 46, only 690,086 were married; and that of 689,829, aged 17 and under 26 years, 633,753 were unmarried. Never was a more complete answer given to any charge than that afforded by these figures.'

In Mr. Chadwick's appendix is a table of the ratio of births and deaths in four different districts of various wealth and poverty. He takes Herefordshire, the healthiest county and best-conditioned, as a standard, and the results are most valuable. They show that as poverty kills, it also creates; and as the deaths thicken, the births multiply! It is as follows:

This needs no comment, nor does the following return by the registrar for the years 1839 to 1841, inclusive, all years of growing suffering, distress, and national privation:

Thus we have proof incontestable, that, as privation caused fewer marriages, it caused more conceptions and births; as one decreases, the other grows; so true is nature to this law, and so false is the contrary assumption of Malthus and his school.

The check of moral restraint,' as enforced by Mr. Malthus, we see is supplied by something better and more efficient-by the True law of Population, the force of nature. And Mr. Doubleday has clearly shown, while total abstinence from marriage, when necessary, is secured by this law without doing any violence to the social affections, that the favourite nostrum of Mr. Malthus, that of 'late marriages,' so far from being a remedy, is an aggravation of what his theory seems to regard as the plague of humanity--the invincible march of population; instead of arresting, it accelerates its progress. That which seems to be the object of incessant dread to Malthus, appears to be the peculiar care of Providence. In page 140 of Mr. Doubleday's work, we were struck with the following, which to us was as satisfactory as it was novel ::

It has very generally and very plausibly been set down as an obvious truth, that 'late marriages' are a 'check to population;' and if carried far enough, with regard to the important point of delay, there can be no doubt that this is not only a truth, but a truism. Provident nature has, however, done all she could to secure the continuation of the species against this danger; and singular to relate, but most indubitably true it is, that when marriage is delayed, fertility is increased in the ratio of delay, until the point is passed, after which the bearing of children becomes impossible. In order to prove this extraordinary and very instructive fact, the following table is adduced. It was constructed by Doctor Granville, and Mr. Finlayson, the well-known accountant, and is based upon the particulars of eight hundred and seventy-six cases, which that eminent practitioner attended as 'physician to the Benevolent Lying-in Institution, and Westminster Dispensary.' It will be observed that the cases were, in all human probability, those of females in the same station of life-all probably suckling their own children, and exposed to none of the causes of par

tial sterility on one hand, or stimulated fertility on the other, to which females in the more artificial stations of life are subjected.

Table showing the effect that the postponement of marriage in females has upon their animal fecundity:

“The results in the above table are given in decimals, but the general results may be described as follows:-When females marry at or before twenty years of age, their average offspring is not quite a child in two years. From twenty to thirty-two, females marrying produce on an average somewhat faster than a child in two years. If married from thirty-three to thirty-six years of age, females will average more than two births in three years; and from thirty-seven to thirty-nine, about a birth in each eleven months, being rather more than one each year.

"All these results, it may be safely affirmed, tend one way—that is to say, they go directly to confirm the existence of that great natural law which provides that the power of increase shall itself grow with the exigencies of the occasion; and that, as the continuation of the species may be endangered, in that exact proportion the facility and power of continuance shall be enlarged and extended. That this law extends to the human race, as well as being the regulator of the fecundity and produce both of the inferior animals and the vegetable kingdom, seems to be abundantly clear, as far as the proofs derived directly from physiology as well as statistics are concerned.'

Thus having cleared out of the way all Malthusian prejudices about checks of population, which, whatever they are, have been in full operation in this country for the last half or threequarters of a century, we shall see that poverty, crime, and population have increased together; that as population has pressed upon the means of subsistence, so as to place millions of the people in a state of semi-starvation, inducing all manner of violations of the laws; that it has, nevertheless, rapidly advanced-has increased, is increasing, and cannot be diminished, until it shiver the framework of society to atoms, or our rulers grow wiser in time. Never should we have been, as a country, in the fearful plight we are, if the governing classes had legislated for the people as well as for themselves—had they abolished the rights of primogeniture and entail-had they emanci