"In this instance the inhabitants appear to have been almost doubled in fifty-six years, no very bad epidemics having once interrupted the increase, but the three years immediately follow ing the last period (to 1759) were so sickly that the births were sunk to 10,229 and the burials raised to 15,068." Is it not probable that in this case the number of inhabitants had increased faster than the food and the accommodations necessary to preserve them in health? The mass of the people would, upon this supposition, be obliged to live harder, and a greater number would be crowded together in one house, and it is not surely improbable that these were among the natural causes that produced the three sickly years. These causes may produce such an effect, though the country, absolutely considered, may not be extremely crowded and populous. In a country even thinly inhabited, if an increase of population take place, before more food is raised, and more houses are built, the inhabitants must be distressed in some degree for room and subsistence. Were the marriages in England, for the next eight or ten years, to be more prolifick than usual, or even were a greater number of marriages than usual to take place, supposing the number of houses to remain the same, instead of five or six to a cottage, there must be seven or eight, and this, added to the necessity of harder living, would probably have a very unfavourable effect on the health of the common people. NEUMARK OF BRANDENBURGH Proportion Proportion Annual Average Births Burials Marriages of Births to of Births to Marriages Burials 5 yrs to 1701 5,433 3,483 1,436 37 to 10 155 to 100 5 yrs to 1726 7,012 4,254 1,713 40 to 10 164 to 100 5 yrs to 1756 7,978 5,567 1,891 42 to 10 143 to 100 "Epidemics prevailed for six years, from 1736, to 1741, which checked the increase." DUKEDOM OF MAGDEBURGH Proportion Proportion Annual Average Births Burials Marriages of Births to of Births to Marriages Burials 5 yrs to 1702 6,431 4,103 1,681 38 to 10 156 to 100 5 yrs to 1717 7,590 5,335 2,076 36 to 10 142 to 100 5 yrs to 1756 8,850 8,069 2,193 40 to 10 109 to 100 "The years 1738, 1740, 1750, and 1751, were particularly sickly." For further information on this subject, I refer the reader to Mr Suessmilch's tables. The extracts that I have made are sufficient to shew the periodical, though irregular, returns of sickly seasons, and it seems highly probable that a scantiness of room and food was one of the principal causes that occasioned them.