"If it be still said, that there is a difficulty in perceiving how the natural increase of population should be restrained,--implying that marriages should in general be rendered later and less productive,--by laws which give protection against destitution, I can only repeat what I formerly stated, that in order to understand this, it is only necessary to suppose, what is quite in accordance with individual observation, that human conduct, and particularly the conduct of young persons, is more generally influenced by hope than by fear,--that more are deterred from early and imprudent marriages by the hope and prospect of maintaining and bettering their condition in life, than by the fear of absolute destitution. The examples of the Highlands and of Ireland are more than enough to show, that this last is not a motive on which the legislator can place reliance, as influencing the conduct of young persons in extreme poverty. No legislation can take from them the resource of mendicity, of one kind or another, as a safeguard, in ordinary circumstances, against death by famine; and _experience shows_ that those who are brought up in habits of mendicity, or of continued association with mendicants, will trust to this resource, and marry and rear families, where no other prospect of their maintenance can be perceived; whereas those who have been brought up in habits of comparative comfort, and accustomed to artificial wants, will look to bettering their condition, and be influenced by the preventive check of moral restraint, to a degree, as Mr Farr--judging from the general results of the registration of marriages in England--expresses it, which 'will hardly be credited when stated in figures.' "I have repeatedly stated likewise, that I consider an efficient poor law, extending to all forms of destitution, as affording a salutary preventive check on early marriages and excessive population in another way, which is easily illustrated by statistical facts, viz. by making it obviously the interest of landed proprietors always to throw obstacles in the way of such marriages among persons who are likely to become burdensome on the poor rates, _i. e._ among all who have no clear prospect of profitable employment. The number of crofters, and still more of cotters, living _en parasite_ on the occupiers of the soil in the Highlands, is the theme of continual lamentation; but the question seldom occurs to those who make this complaint,--would such a population be allowed to settle on the lands of an English proprietor, who is familiar with the operation of the poor-rate?" The following remarks also are well deserving of attention:--