Mr. Malthus, in the seventh chapter of his second book, speaks of the checks to population in England. He points out that a man of liberal education, with an income just sufficient to enable him to associate with educated people, must feel absolutely certain that, if he should marry and have a family, he will be obliged to mix in the society of uneducated persons. Such considerations make him pause. Sons of tradesmen and farmers are exhorted not to marry until settled in some business or farm, and the labourer who earns two shillings a day, and lives comfortably while single, will hesitate to divide that pittance among five! The servants of rich people have so many comforts that _they_ naturally are averse to sink down to be the proprietors of some poor alehouse. Hence, in Malthus’ day (1806), the annual marriages in England and Wales were as 1 in 123 of the population, a smaller proportion than obtained in any European country at that time, except Norway and Sweden. Dr. Short, writing in 1750, proposed that single people should be heavily taxed for the support of the married poor. Mr. Malthus replies to this proposal of the learned judge, that it is not wise to ask people to enter the married state, so long as such crowds of children die in infancy and so much poverty exists among married persons. Those, he adds, who live single or marry late do not diminish the actual population by so doing. They merely prevent the proportion of premature mortality which would otherwise be excessive. Sir F. M. Eden mentioned that in some English villages the mortality seemed to be very low, viz. 1 in 47, or 21 per 1,000. London, in the beginning of this century, was, it seems, by no means so healthy as it is at present. According to a great authority, Dr. Price, the mortality was actually 60 per 1,000 (1 in 20¾), whilst at present it is about 23 per 1,000. At the same epoch, the Manchester death-rate was 1 in 21, or 35 per 1,000; so that Manchester was in those days much healthier than London. Manufactures, alas! however useful, are almost always most unwholesome, because they crowd hosts of people together without comfort, education, or forethought. Mr. Malthus truly observes that “there certainly seems to be something in great towns, and even in moderate towns, peculiarly unfavourable to the very early stages of life.” Towns, he adds, are especially dangerous to the life of children. “In London, according to former calculations, one-half of the born died under three years of age; in Vienna and Stockholm under two; in Northampton under ten. In country villages, on the contrary, half the born live to thirty, forty, forty-six, and above.” He adds that in parishes where the mortality is so small as 1 in 60 or 1 in 75, half the born would be found to have lived to 50 or 55. This is precisely the case among the members of the professional classes in England and Wales at this time, according to Mr. Charles Ansell’s oft-quoted tables.