Mr. Malthus mentions that it had been calculated in his time that, when the proportion of the people in towns in any State was to those in the country as 1 to 3, then the mortality was about 28 per 1,000, rising to 32 in 1,000, when the proportion of townsmen to countrymen was as 3 to 7; and falling below 28 per 1,000 when the townsmen are to the countrymen as 1 to 4. This holds true in principle in modern times: and it is out of the question to expect to have the death-rate of large cities as low as it is in country districts inhabited by well-fed peasants. In chapter vi. our author speaks of the checks to population in Switzerland. From statistics existing in Geneva, it seems that in that town, during the sixteenth century, the probability of life, or the age to which half of those born live, was only 4·88, or rather less than 5; and the mean life was about 18½ years. In the seventeenth century the probability of life was 11½, and the mean life 23¼. In the eighteenth century the probability of life had increased to 27, and the mean life to 32. M. Muret, a Swiss clergyman of Vevey, in the eighteenth century, mentions the case of a village called Leyzin, with a population of 400 persons, where there were only eight births a year. The probability of life in this model parish appeared to be so extraordinarily high as to reach 61 years. And the average number of the births having been for 30 years almost accurately equal to the number of deaths, clearly proved that the habits of the people had not led them to emigrate, and that the resources of the parish for the support of the population had remained nearly stationary. As the marriages in this parish would, with few exceptions, be very late, it is evident that a very large proportion of the subsisting marriages would be among persons so far advanced in life that the women had ceased to bear. The births were only about 1 in 49 of the population or much fewer than in France of modern days (1 in 40). In England they are 1 in 28 of the population at present.