DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0075
THE PROGRESS OF ENGLISH POPULATION. 59
entirely on abstract grounds, that misery checks population, that
it is perhaps the most powerful stimulant to it, quite apart from
the provision on which Malthus laid so much stress, the legal
relief from destitution. The fact is abundantly illustrated by the
social history of Ireland. Up to 1845-6 Ireland had no poor law.
But the misery of Ireland was excessive, and is witnessed to by
writers like Swift and Arthur Young. At the outbreak of the
potato disease in the autumn of 1845 the population of the island
was over eight millions, most of them dependent on a single
means of subsistence, and that the cheapest, lowest, and most
perishable. Now though nothing so terrible as the famine of
1845 had ever occurred in Irish social history, famine was endemic
in Ireland. The people were miserably oppressed and therefore
reckless. It is very disficult to get at any information about fertile
and infertile families. We know something about noble families,
and how they die out in the male line. We know a little about
the singular fecundity of the criminal classes, for inquirers have
been startled at the numerous descendants of thieves. We know,
too, that hardly any persons of great literary acquirements, es-
pecially those who have been distinguished for imaginative gifts,
have left descendants in the fourth generation. Perhaps in time
to come, a law will be discovered on this phenomenon, and the fact
that a poet has left a long line of descendants will be more fatal to
his reputation than any assaults of any number of critics.
Now let us turn to the facts of English social history. From
the earliest times the staple food of the English people has been
wheaten bread. Wheat is the costliest, and on the whole the most
precarious of our corn crops. Now I consider a famine to be a
scarcity in which the price of wheat rises to more than twice its
average price, a dearth when the additional price is from one half
the ordinary price to double. I should add to this that the
contingency is increased when the law tampers with wages, as it
did successfully in 1563 and onwards. Now I have in my
possession a record of every harvest in England since 1259, i.e., for
628 years. The resultant inferences are, to be sure, asfected by
the free-trade measure of 1846, though it took a much longer time
than people foresaw, or even now understand, to create a corn
trade. Now in the last forty-two years of the thirteenth century
entirely on abstract grounds, that misery checks population, that
it is perhaps the most powerful stimulant to it, quite apart from
the provision on which Malthus laid so much stress, the legal
relief from destitution. The fact is abundantly illustrated by the
social history of Ireland. Up to 1845-6 Ireland had no poor law.
But the misery of Ireland was excessive, and is witnessed to by
writers like Swift and Arthur Young. At the outbreak of the
potato disease in the autumn of 1845 the population of the island
was over eight millions, most of them dependent on a single
means of subsistence, and that the cheapest, lowest, and most
perishable. Now though nothing so terrible as the famine of
1845 had ever occurred in Irish social history, famine was endemic
in Ireland. The people were miserably oppressed and therefore
reckless. It is very disficult to get at any information about fertile
and infertile families. We know something about noble families,
and how they die out in the male line. We know a little about
the singular fecundity of the criminal classes, for inquirers have
been startled at the numerous descendants of thieves. We know,
too, that hardly any persons of great literary acquirements, es-
pecially those who have been distinguished for imaginative gifts,
have left descendants in the fourth generation. Perhaps in time
to come, a law will be discovered on this phenomenon, and the fact
that a poet has left a long line of descendants will be more fatal to
his reputation than any assaults of any number of critics.
Now let us turn to the facts of English social history. From
the earliest times the staple food of the English people has been
wheaten bread. Wheat is the costliest, and on the whole the most
precarious of our corn crops. Now I consider a famine to be a
scarcity in which the price of wheat rises to more than twice its
average price, a dearth when the additional price is from one half
the ordinary price to double. I should add to this that the
contingency is increased when the law tampers with wages, as it
did successfully in 1563 and onwards. Now I have in my
possession a record of every harvest in England since 1259, i.e., for
628 years. The resultant inferences are, to be sure, asfected by
the free-trade measure of 1846, though it took a much longer time
than people foresaw, or even now understand, to create a corn
trade. Now in the last forty-two years of the thirteenth century