clauses in Mr Pitt's Poor Bill--Only one proper way of
encouraging population--Causes of the Happiness of nations--
Famine, the last and most dreadful mode by which nature represses
a redundant population--The three propositions considered as
established.


By great attention to cleanliness, the plague seems at length to
be completely expelled from London. But it is not improbable that
among the secondary causes that produce even sickly seasons and
epidemics ought to be ranked a crowded population and unwholesome
and insufficient food. I have been led to this remark, by looking
over some of the tables of Mr Suessmilch, which Dr Price has
extracted in one of his notes to the postscript on the
controversy respecting the population of England and Wales. They
are considered as very correct, and if such tables were general,
they would throw great light on the different ways by which
population is repressed and prevented from increasing beyond the
means of subsistence in any country. I will extract a part of the
tables, with Dr Price's remarks.

IN THE KINGDOM OF PRUSSIA, AND DUKEDOM OF LITHUANIA

Proportion Proportion
Births Burials Marriages of Births to of Births to
Marriages Burials
10 Yrs to 1702 21,963 14,718 5,928 37 to 10 150 to 100
5 Yrs to 1716 21,602 11,984 4,968 37 to 10 180 to 100
5 Yrs to 1756 28,392 19,154 5,599 50 to 10 148 to 100