THE TRUE LAW OF POPULATION.

 THOMAS DOUBLEDAY, a modern author of some celebrity in the world of fiction, has published a work under this title—'The true law of population shown to be connected with the food of the people.' The British Quarterly Review states, that " the theory so long attributed to Malthus is not his. It was originally broached in a book called 'Wallace on the prospects of mankind,' and also affirmed in a letter signed B. F., in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1770, written by Benjamin Franklin." The system rests he assumption that the procreative power in man is always the same, and always in excess—and that population is only checked by insufficiency of food, by vice or misery, holding in abeyance the Divine command to increase and multiply. Malthus added that tendency of human increase was always geometrical ratio 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, &c.,and the increase of food only in arithmetical proportion 1,2, 3,4, 6, &c. He concluded that except in quite new countries, and only there for a short time, population always pressed upon subsistence, and was only checked by vice and misery, or, as he termed it, " moral restraint." Malthus appealed to modern nations, in most of which there is some increase, but especially to the United States, in proof of his theory. He, however, overlooked emigration, and attributed the rapid increase of inhabitants to procreation in a new country where provisions were cheap and unlimited in supply. It was subsequently shown at in those towns in the United States not augmented by emigration the proportion of births to a marriage was less then in Europe: that the numbers under age, compared with those above, were not more but rather less than in England; and later and more exact enquiry has established the same conclusion. Malthus's scheme has, however, prevailed up the present time, and it now remains to seen whether or not Mr. Doubleday's theory will displace that of his predecessor.
 The question of population is so interesting that we are sure our readers will be gratified with a summary of the contents of this new work. Mr. Doubleday's theory is the exact reverse of Malthus. The author of the "True Law" maintains that increase and decrease are in the inverse ratio with the quantity and quality of aliment—that plenty produces sterility, and scarcity fecundity. He conceives this law is founded on the highest wisdom and benevolence. 1st. Because when a species is in danger of extinction by want it is thus secured. 2nd. Because the transmission of disease, the product of luxury in most cases, is thus checked. He finds the existence of his principle in the theory and practice of horticulturists. When trees and plants are set in too rich a soil they run to weed; flower double and do not seed; blossom only at the extremes of the branches, but yield no fruit; become diseased and die. On the contrary, a tree planted in too poor a soil may be stunted, but it will produce fruit: if the soil is absolutely pernicious nature makes a last effort,—the tree fruits abundantly and then dies. Thus, if gardeners want a plant to "seed" they give it a "check" by setting it out in the cold, or cutting and pruning it severely, The fig is liable to drop its fruit when half matured: severe pruning corrects the tendency. Hence the check operates not to diminish the species, according to Malthus' principle, but to stimulate its rapid increase. The law is more distinctly developed in the animal creation, but we cannot follow the author farther in this direction.
 Mr. Doubleday divides mankind into three classes, the poor, the intermediate, and the rich, and examines each in detail. He first takes the baronetage of England; the magnates of republics, as Genoa or Venice; the privileged burgesses of rich corporations, and religious communities, such as the Quakers. It appears that none of these (being wealthy) can keep up their numbers by procreation. The nobility are only preserved at all by constant new creations, by which fresh blood is, as it were, infused into a body dying of atrophy. The instances adduced by Mr. Doubleday not only prove the principle he assumes, but even load it with superfluous evidence.
 The proof of Mr. Doubleday's second principle, that the increase of population is stimulated by privation, is derived from various sources. The mutineers of the Bounty, on Pitcairn's Island, were in circumstances to test the truth of the theory : cut off from all intercourse with the world, they lived chiefly on eggs, yams, and fish of a maigre species. In twenty years their population was tripled, and in forty decupled. In pastoral countries, where flesh is largely consumed, or where the vine, the olive, or other oleaginous food is plentiful, the population is thin. In corn countries it is more dense; but where rice is the staple the earth teems with inhabitants. Thus Poland, a grain country, has 1,544 souls to the Russian square mile, European Russia 606, Asiatic 43, while in Bengal, where the people abstain from animal food and wine, and subsist on rice and meagre fruits, the population is 2,166 to the British square league. This is somewhat exceeded in China: and Japan, where the food is all but exclusively vegetable, surpasses the latter in populousness.* In countries where the pastoral and agricultural modes of life are mixed, where the olive and the vine are found, the peculiarities of the principle are observable. Take France : in the richer provinces, such as Languedoc, where the inhabitants are in superior circumstances, there are the fewest people only 988 to the French league: while Brittany, where the peasantry are poor and squalid, has 1,414 to the same space. The same truth is demonstrated by a reference to Ireland. It has been an oppressed country since the time of its invasion by Henry II., and its inhabitants have repeatedly been all but extirpated by famine. So poor are they that a third part are nomadic paupers : yet Ireland is the most over-peopled realm in Europe or America. In 1695 it had 1,034,102 souls; 1745, 2,372,634; in 1791, 4,206,612; 1813, 5,937,856; in 1831, 7,734,365; and the last census rose to between eight and nine millions. From these returns it appears that in opposition to the theory of Malthus, the population of Ireland has increased as distress and poverty and want of food increased.
 In the opinion of our author the condition of the majority of the English people has for a series of years been deteriorating, and still continues to deteriorate. Sir John Fortescue, about 1460, thus describes the state of the people:—"They drink no water, unless some upon a zeal of penance abstain from other drink : they eat plentifully of all kinds of fish and flesh ; they wear fine woollen cloth: they have abundance of bed-coverings; they have great store of household implements; they have abundance of gold and silver, &c." It is remarkable that during a time of peace comfort and luxury statutes should have been enacted for the maintenance of houses and towns. During 150 years it was a subject of complaint that the population was diminishing ; that houses were left unoccupied, and fell into dilapidation, and that cities were sinking into decay. Since that time there has been no lack of Malthus checks, vice and misery; and yet the population has been rapidly augmenting until the increase now amounts to a thousand per day. Marriages have not multiplied in a degree to prove the improvidence of the poor as the cause of the evil. Mr. Saddler's tables show that when provisions are dear marriages decrease and births increase—when cheap, that marriages increase, but births diminish. In Ireland the census of '41 shows that of 1,643,704 aged 17 to 46, only 690,086 were married, and that of 689,829 aged 17 and under 26, 633,753 were unmarried. Mr. Chadwick gives a table of the ratio of births and deaths in four different districts in England of various wealth and poverty, and the results show that as poverty kills it also creates, and as deaths thicken the births multiply. The following return by the Registrar embraces years of growing suffering, distress, and national privation:—
 Years.  Marriages.  Births.  Deaths.
1839 .... 123,106 .... 492,574 .... 338,979
1840 .... 122,005 .... 502,303 .... 359,634
1841 .... 122,400 .... 512,168 .... 343,857
1842 .... 116,825 .... 517,739 .... 349,519
 It is thus seen that as privation caused fewer marriages it occasioned more births.
 While Mr. Doubleday shows that abstinence from marriage, when necessary, is secured by this law without violence to the social affections, he exposes the fallacy of Malthus' favourite nostrum "late marriages," which so far from being a remedy is an aggravation, and instead of checking accelerate the progress of population. The following table was constructed by Dr. Granville and Mr. Finlayson, and is based upon the particulars of 876 cases attended as physician to the Westminster Dispensary. The females were all married in the same station of life :—
 Ages when      Average births
 married.       to the year.
 13 to 16 ...................... 456,706
 17 to 20 ...................... 503,610
 21 to 24 .....................  520,227
 25 to 28 ...................... 545,103
 20 to 32 ...................... 589,811
 33 to 36 .....................  776,806
 37 to 39 .................... 1,125,000
 The results are in decimals, but may be thus described. When females marry at or before twenty years of age their average offspring is not quite a child in two years. From twenty to thirty-two, somewhat faster than a child in two years. If married from thirty-three to thirty-six, females will average more than two births in three years, and from thirty-seven to thirty-nine, about a birth in each eleven months.
 It is thus plain that where riches and luxury abound the countries are least populous; where poverty and want prevail the population is redundant. Where governments legislate favourably for a privileged class, and leave the people to struggle against oppressive laws and cruel exactions, like the Jews in captivity, the more you starve, work and afflict them, the more they multiply ; wars, famines, and pestilence tell the same tale, and evince the power of nature which rises in her might to oppose the pressure that threatens the species with destruction.
 The talented reviewer to whose labours we are indebted for the principal portion of this article, thus sums up his remarks:—
 " In the first place, then, if this theory of increase and decrease be true, it is true when any species, whether of the vegetable or animal kingdom, is endangered by a failure or diminution of its natural sustenance, and reduced to the deplethoric state, then, in such case, is an immediate stimulus given to increase, which continues as long as the state continues. Secondly, it is also true, that if, on the contrary, such species shall receive immoderate natural aliment, and be brought into the extreme plethoric state, then, in that case, increase is immediately checked, and decrease takes place, which continues as long as the state is continued. Thirdly, it is also true, that if moderate sufficient aliment, or a moderated plethoric state is allotted to, and brought upon any species, then mere reproduction still be the result, without increase or decrease of existing numbers. Fourthly, that if equal portions of the same species be put into these different states, in equal degrees, it follows, as a true conclusion, that the decrease of one portion will be compensated by the increase of the other, and numbers remain as they were.
 " In this theory, there are no 'harsh conclusions' to be softened ; no dark perplexities throwing their shadows over the moral government of God, which can neither be explained nor removed ; here are no castes which elevate certain privileged classes of the human family so far above the pressure of want, that scarcely any possible circumstances can bring them near its precincts, and which, by a necessity of condition, compels by far the largest portion to dwell hopelessly on its borders, and in perpetual danger of being plunged into its abyss. According to this system, the world is not a walled paradise to a privileged few, and a wilderness to the undistinguished many. And if it be said, that whatever be the principles of this or of any other theory—such is the state of mankind—and such it has ever been—our answer is plain and direct, that if we admit the fact, we detest the principles that furnish an argument for its existence, and continuance. It is a state which the law of God condemns, and which could never have found a place upon earth, had the moral principles and political economy of the Bible been recognised and obeyed; and even apart from divine revelation, if man had read his own nature aright, he might have learned that tyranny and slavery were alike alien from his moral and social dignity. The two states of a population which threaten to destroy the prosperity of a nation, as we have seen, are wealth and luxury—and poverty and want,—the one, by diminishing the numbers of the people; the other, by multiplying them to excess. When these two states exist together so as to draw a strong line of demarcation between the interests and sympathies of the classes they indicate, a political crisis cannot be far distant; especially if the causes which produced the separation, and are every day increasing the distance, are permitted to operate with accelerating force. That this is our precise condition at the present juncture, will not be questioned."

* Jeddo, the capital, is the largest city in the world, containing 1,680,000 inhabitants. The Keebo, or Military Dictator, and federal tributary princes, maintain an army of 468,000 infantry and 53,000 cavalry. Although the people are miserably poor, the revenue derived from such immense numbers amounts to twenty millions sterling. Although these islands consist mostly of mountains, with a sterile soil and inclement climate, they possess about 1,600 persons to the square league.

Launceston Examiner (Tas. : 1842 - 1899), Wednesday 26 May 1847, page 3