From 1753 to 1792, the increase was 104,636,882, or an annual advance of 2,682,997 inhabitants, or about 2-1/2 per cent. per annum for thirty-nine years. During this period, the country enjoyed almost uninterrupted peace under the vigorous sway of Kienlung, and the unsettled regions of the south and west rapidly filled up. From 1792 to 1812, the increase was 54,126,679, or an annual advance of 2,706,333--not quite one per cent. per annum--for twenty years. At the same rate of progress the present population would amount to over 450,000,000, and this might have been the case had not the Tai-ping rebellion reduced the numbers. An enumeration (No. 22), was published by the Russian Professor of Chinese Vassilivitch in 1868 as a translation from official documents. Foreigners have had greater opportunities for travel through the country, between the years 1840 to 1880, and have ascertained the enormous depopulation in some places caused by wars, short supplies of food in consequence of scarcity of laborers, famines, or brigandage, each adding its own power of destruction at different places and times. The conclusion will not completely satisfy any inquirer, but the population of the Empire cannot now reasonably be estimated as high as the census of 1812, by at least twenty-five millions. The last in the list of these censuses (No. 23), is added as an example of the efforts of intelligent persons residing in China to come to a definite and independent conclusion on this point from such data as they can obtain. The Imperial Customs’ Service has been able to command the best native assistance in their researches, and the table of population given above from the _Gotha Almanac_ is the summary of what has been ascertained. The population of extra-provincial China is really unknown at present. Manchuria is put down at twelve millions by one author, and three or four millions, by another, without any official authority for either; and all those vast regions in Ílí and Tibet may easily be set down at from twelve to fifteen millions. To sum up, one must confess that if the Chinese censuses are worth but little, compared with those taken in European states, they are better than the guesses of foreigners who have never been in the country, or who have travelled only partially in it. ~PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE IN THEIR FAVOR.~