China seems to answer to this description. If the accounts we
have of it are to be trusted, the lower classes of people are in
the habit of living almost upon the smallest possible quantity of
food and are glad to get any putrid offals that European
labourers would rather starve than eat. The law in China which
permits parents to expose their children has tended principally
thus to force the population. A nation in this state must
necessarily be subject to famines. Where a country is so populous
in proportion to the means of subsistence that the average
produce of it is but barely sufficient to support the lives of
the inhabitants, any deficiency from the badness of seasons must
be fatal. It is probable that the very frugal manner in which the
Gentoos are in the habit of living contributes in some degree to
the famines of indostan.

In America, where the reward of labour is at present so
liberal, the lower classes might retrench very considerably in a
year of scarcity without materially distressing themselves. A
famine therefore seems to be almost impossible. It may be
expected that in the progress of the population of America, the
labourers will in time be much less liberally rewarded. The
numbers will in this case permanently increase without a
proportional increase in the means of subsistence.

In the different states of Europe there must be some
variations in the proportion between the number of inhabitants
and the quantity of food consumed, arising from the different
habits of living that prevail in each state. The labourers of the
South of England are so accustomed to eat fine wheaten bread that
they will suffer themselves to be half starved before they will