Dr. Short, it seems, estimated the birth-rate of England at 1 in 28, or 35 per 1,000. This is just about our present birth-rate. “It has hitherto,” says our author, “been usual with political calculators to consider a great proportion of births as the surest sign of a vigorous and flourishing state. It is to be hoped, however, that this prejudice will not last long. In countries circumstanced like America, or in other countries after any great mortality, a large proportion of births may be a favourable symptom; but in the average state of a well-peopled territory, there cannot well be a worse sign than a large proportion of births, nor can there well be a better sign than a small proportion.” This sentence ought to be written in letters of gold on the public monuments of all civilised States. Sir Francis d’Ivernois, who is by no means always so wise, is cited by Malthus as writing as follows:—“If the various States of Europe kept and published annually an exact account of their population, noting carefully in a second column the exact age at which the children die, this second column would show the relative merit of the governments and the comparative happiness of their subjects. A single arithmetical statement would then perhaps be more conclusive than all the arguments that could be adduced.” Mr. Malthus speaks of the great difficulty that existed in former centuries of obtaining reliable information as to the numbers of the people. According to Davenant, he says, in 1690, the number of houses (in England and Wales) was 1,319,215. Allowing five persons to a house, this would give a population of six millions and a half in 1690; and it is quite incredible that from this time to 1710 the population should have diminished nearly a million and a half. So that the estimated population of England and Wales in the latter year was said to have been only five millions. * * * * * In chapter eight of his second book, our author speaks of the checks to population in Scotland and Ireland. At the beginning of this century, as now, Scotland seems to have been one of the healthiest countries in Europe. Malthus mentions that in the parish of Crossmichael, in Kircudbright, the mortality was given as one in 98, and the yearly marriages as one in 192 of the population. Mr. Wilkie stated that from the accounts of 36 parishes, the expectation of an infant’s life appeared to be as high as 40·3. There can be little doubt that these figures are all, more or less, erroneous.