r Voelkerkunde, Berlin. No. 1D 8756, 68_.]

[Illustration: 15 Pavilion on the 'Coal Hill' at Peking, in which the
last Ming emperor committed suicide. _Photo Eberhard_.]

[Illustration: Chart POPULATION GROWTH OF CHINA]

The decline of the Manchu dynasty began at a time when the European
trade was still insignificant, and not as late as after 1842, when China
had to submit to the foreign Capitulations. These cannot have been the
true cause of the decline. Above all, the decline was not so noticeable
in the state of the Exchequer as in a general impoverishment of China.
The number of really wealthy persons among the gentry diminished, but
the middle class, that is to say the people who had education but little
or no money and property, grew steadily in number.

One of the deeper reasons for the decline of the Manchu dynasty seems to
lie in the enormous increase in the population. Here are a few Chinese
statistics:

_Year_ _Population_

1578(before the Manchus) 10,621,463 families or 60,692,856 individuals
1662 19,203,233 " 100,000,000 " [*]
1710 23,311,236 " 116,000,000 " [*]
1729 25,480,498 " 127,000,000 " [*]
1741 " 143,411,559 "
1754 184,504,493 "
1778 242,965,618 "
1796 275,662,414 "
1814 374,601,132 "
1850 414,493,899 "
(1953) (601,938,035 ")

[*] Approximately

It may be objected that these figures are incorrect and exaggerated.
Undoubtedly they contain errors. But the first figure (for 1578) of some
sixty millions is in close agreement with all other figures of early
times; the figure for 1850 seems high, but cannot be far wrong, for even
after the great T'ai P'ing Rebellion of 1851, which, together with its
after-effects, costs the lives of countless millions, all statisticians
of today estimate the population of China at more than four hundred
millions. If we enter these data together with the census of 1953 into a
chart (see p. 273), a fairly smooth curve emerges; the special features
are that already under the Ming