Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/146

 increase of the county of Cornwall, and of the whole of England, during the same period; the former exhibiting an increase of 37 per cent. and the latter of 34 per cent. only.

The rate of increase has differed considerably among the different classes of inhabitants, being a good deal more among the mining population than among the inhabitants of agricultural parishes and towns.

We are enabled to ascertain this fact from various sources, but with most accuracy, 1st, by comparing together the population of the chief mining parishes with that of the agricultural districts and towns, as in Table I.; and 2nd, by comparing the number of men liable to serve in the two classes of militia, (mentioned in the last chapter,) as in Table II.

From the first of these documents it results that the mining population has increased 40 per cent. while the agricultural has increased only 38 per per cent. during a period of thirty years.

From the second of these documents it results that the milling population has increased 33 per cent. while the agricultural has increased only 19 per cent. during a period of fifteen years. This gives the proportional increase of the mining population greatly higher than the former.

The difference of result in these two cases, as to the actual and relative increase in the two classes, flows naturally from the difference of the data on which they are founded. The former document includes the whole population, male and female, for a period of thirty years; the latter, only the actual miners of the male sex, from the age of eighteen to forty-five, and for a period of only fifteen years. It