Proportion Proportion
Annual Average Births Burials Marriages of Births to of Births to
Marriages Burials
5 yrs to 1702 6,431 4,103 1,681 38 to 10 156 to 100
5 yrs to 1717 7,590 5,335 2,076 36 to 10 142 to 100
5 yrs to 1756 8,850 8,069 2,193 40 to 10 109 to 100


"The years 1738, 1740, 1750, and 1751, were particularly
sickly."

For further information on this subject, I refer the reader
to Mr Suessmilch's tables. The extracts that I have made are
sufficient to shew the periodical, though irregular, returns of
sickly seasons, and it seems highly probable that a scantiness of
room and food was one of the principal causes that occasioned
them.

It appears from the tables that these countries were
increasing rather fast for old states, notwithstanding the
occasional seasons that prevailed. Cultivation must have been
improving, and marriages, consequently, encouraged. For the
checks to population appear to have been rather of the positive,
than of the preventive kind. When from a prospect of increasing
plenty in any country, the weight that represses population is in
some degree removed, it is highly probable that the motion will
be continued beyond the operation of the cause that first
impelled it. Or, to be more particular, when the increasing
produce of a country, and the increasing demand for labour, so
far ameliorate the condition of the labourer as greatly to