Page:The Effects of Civilisation on the People in European States.djvu/37

Rh Lauderdale, in a very ingenious discourse, lately published, on Wealth, quotes a passage from a letter of the Marquis of :

"On a soin de les marier d'aussi bonne heure que les grands seigneurs, le pays n'en est pas plus peuplé, car presque tons les enfans meurent: les femmes n'y ont presque pas de lait. "

But if three-fourths or two-thirds of this deficiency in the increase of the people be chargeable on the mortality complained of, we have still enough to lament. And it may be added, that if this forbearance of the poor, in the indulgence of their strongest desires, actually takes place, it strongly evinces the reality and magnitude of the evils they see around them.

What renders this matter still more grievous is, that there are many more sufferers than those who die, from the same causes: many who have struggled with the difficulties, and escaped with their lives, have suffered greatly in the conflict, and continue ever after to suffer, from the injury their constitution received. As a proof of this, what rickety, squalid, dwarfed, distorted objects, do we see in the manufacturing towns of Europe! This will further appear from the consideration of the employments of the poor.