We have lately understood the magnitude of a Chinese famine, where millions of unfortunate people are reduced to misery and death at once, from the failure of the crops. Mr. Malthus notices that, in such times of dearth, China can obtain no assistance from her neighbours: and must perforce draw the whole of her resources from her own provinces. When such failures of the crops occur, the government of China pretend to be very assiduous in providing schemes for the miseries of the people; but, in the meanwhile, hosts of unfortunates are starved to death, since there is not enough food forthcoming, so little margin is left, on account of the very scanty share falling to the lot of each, even in times of plenty. In this chapter upon China and Japan Malthus makes an acute remark on the question, which is sometimes discussed in this country, whether the consumption of grain in the manufacture of spirits is ever a cause of famine. The whole tendency of such a manufacture is, he asserts, to the contrary. “The consumption of corn, in any other way but that of necessary food, checks the population before it arrives at the utmost limits of subsistence, and, as the grain may be withdrawn from this particular use in the time of a scarcity, a public granary is thus opened richer probably than could have been formed by any other means. When such a consumption has been once established, and has become permanent, its effect is exactly as if a piece of land, with all the people upon it, were removed from the country. The rest of the people would certainly be precisely in the same state as they were before, neither better nor worse, in years of average plenty; but, in a time of dearth, the produce of this land would be returned to them, without the mouths to help them to eat it.” This fact should be borne in mind by Mr. Hoyle and other writers on abstinence from alcohol, since the advocacy of a good cause is often impeded by incorrect reasoning. “China, without her distilleries, would certainly be more populous,” says Malthus, “but on a failure of the seasons would have still less resource than she has at present, and as far as the magnitude of the cause would operate, would, in consequence, be more subject to famines, and those famines would be severe.” Temperance advocates, then, should, if possible, try to substitute a less injurious luxury in the place of alcohol, which causes so much disease; and not forget that the poverty of over-population is one of the great causes of drunkenness.