M. Quetelet’s returns show that so far as the present state of information can be relied upon, the same law is observed in general action, not only in provinces but in whole countries throughout Europe. It is confirmed by extensive experience occurring in the new world. The trustworthiness of the registration of births and deaths in Mexico are attested by the examination and use of them by Humboldt, and have been the subject of legislative proceedings. The ratios of births and deaths in the province of Guanaxuato have been referred to by Sir F. d’Ivernois, in illustration of the position that pestilence does not check the progress of population. A large proportion of the inferior Mexican population are reported to “have converted the gifts of heaven to the sustenance of disgusting misery.” It is reported of this populace that it is “half clothed, idle, stained all over with vices; in a word, hideous and known under the name of _leperos_, lepers, on account of the malady to which their filth and bad diet subjects them. Nothing can exceed the state of brutality and superstition to which they have been subjected.”[24] The fecundity of this population, sunk in the lowest vice and misery amidst the means of the highest abundance, was greater than amidst any other whole population in Christendom;[25] they stood thus in 1825 and 1826:— 1 in Deaths 19·70 Births 16·08 They are much mistaken who imagine that a similarly conditioned population is not to be found in this country; it is found in parts of the population of every large town; the description of the Mexican populace will recall features characteristic of the wretched population in the worst parts of Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, and Bath, and the lodging-houses throughout the country.