[Footnote 239-3: Thus _Süssmilch_, Göttliche Ordnung in den Veränderungen des menschlichen Geschlechts, 1st ed., 1742, 4th ed., 1775, I, 126 ff., assumes that one marriage a year takes place, on from every 107 to every 113 persons living. On the other hand, 22 Dutch towns gave an average of 1 in every 64. This abnormal proportion is very correctly ascribed by _Malthus_, Principles of Population, II, ch. 4, to the great mortality of those towns: viz., a death for every 22 or 23 persons living, while the average is 1:36. The Swiss, _Müret_, (in the Mémoires de la Société économique de Berne, 1766, I, 15 ff.), could not help wondering that the villages with the largest average duration of life should be those in which there were fewest births. "So much life-power and yet so few procreative resources!" Here too, _Malthus_, II, ch. 5, solved the enigma. The question was concerned with Alpine villages with an almost stationary cow-herd business: no one married until one cow-herd cottage had become free; and precisely because the tenants lived so long, the new comers obtained their places so late. Compare _d'Ivernois_, Enquête sur les Causes patentes et occultes de la faible Proportion de Naissances à Montreux: yearly 1:46, of the persons living, while the average in all Switzerland was 1:28. In France according to _Quételet_, Sur l'Homme, 1835, I, 83 ff., there was: ===============+===================+============+================ | _One marriage_ | _Children_ | _One death_ _In_ | _a year_ | _to a_ | _yearly _ | _for every_ | _marriage_ | _for every_ ---------------+-------------------+------------+---------------- 4 Departments |110-120 inhabitants| 3.79 |35.4 inhabitants 15 " |120-130 " | 3.79 |39.2 " 23 " |130-140 " | 4.17 |39.0 " 18 " |140-150 " | 4.36 |40.6 " 10 " |150-160 " | 4.43 |40.3 " 9 " |160-170 " | 4.48 |42.7 " 6 " |170 and more " | 4.48 |46.4 " =================================================================