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Untitled Article
the old order of things . That the conscription laws have contributed to this result , by affording a stimulus to early marriages , there seems to be no reason to doubt . It is not , however , in general the most industrious persons , and such as are in the enjoyment , and know the value of property , who are most prone to
engage in early marriages , and to involve themselves in the expenses and embarrassments of a family . Large families are rarely to be met with in France . In what are called the higher classes , four children are reckoned a great family ; and unless there be much misapprehension on the subject , it is by no means certain that the check and preventive system insisted upon by certain political
economists , is not pretty extensively practised in France . Amongst the labouring poor in England and Ireland , it is commonly those who have nothing to lose , who heedlessly and prematurely marry ; whilst on the other hand , the fortunate few who have comfortable dwellings and good gardens , especially if these are their own , calculate long before they run the risk of endangering their comforts and independence . Why the increase of
population in France , since the year 1789 , should be so pertinaciously attributed , and as a crime , to the multiplication of landowners , whilst during the same period in England ( where the contrary practice of absorption of small farms into large , and in every respect an opposite system , has prevailed ) the population has increased in a considerably greater ratio , * it is difficult to conjecture , unless done in ignorance , or in the exercise of the still more
disgraceful imputation of wilful deceit , j The average duration of human life has , however , been greatly prolonged since the Revolution ; and that this is chiefly owing , as Mr . Bakewell and other good authorities say , to a large proportion of the population being enabled , by the more equal distribution of land , to live in a state of greater comfort and security than formerly , there is little
doubt J lhat undue and premature increase of population is to be best prevented by raising the moral and intellectual character of the industrious classes few persons will deny ; but this cannot be done while masses of the people are occasionally in want , and consequently wretched , despairing , miserable . The neglected , if
not despised , but golden maxim , of the late Count Romford , that to make the poor better you must first make them happier , will be found , sooner or later , of greater practical value than all the specious acts of professed statesmen , or the vague speculations of political economists put together . In France , as everywhere else , people will obey the dictates of nature , and ' increase and multiply ,
* Supplement to the Encyclo . Brit . t It appears that the population of France does not double itself in less than 150 years , and that of Great Britain in about half that time , Hi « t . and Typog . of the United States of America , vol . ii . p . 300 . I Will this also be cited as an objection to the laws of succession ?
Untitled Article
French Laws of Succession . 345
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1833, page 345, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2614/page/57/
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