portion, to be about 150.

Mr Sadler states the law of population in England thus:--

"Where the inhabitants are found to be on the square mile,

From To Counties Number of births to 100 marriages

50 100 2 420
100 150 9 396
150 200 16 390
200 250 4 388
250 300 5 378
300 350 3 353
500 600 2 331
4000 and upwards 1 246

"Now, I think it quite reasonable to conclude, that, were there not
another document in existence relative to this subject, the facts thus
deduced from the census of England are fully sufficient to demonstrate
the position, that the fecundity of human beings varies inversely as
their numbers. How, I ask, can it be evaded?"

What, we ask, is there to evade? Is 246 to 420 as 50 to 4000? Is 331 to
396 as 100 to 500? If the law propounded by Mr Sadler were correct, the
births to a hundred marriages in the least populous part of England,
would be 246 x 4000 / 50, that is 19,680,--nearly two hundred children
to every mother. But we will not carry on these calculations. The
absurdity of Mr Sadler's proposition is so palpable that it is
unnecessary to select particular instances. Let us see what are the
extremes of population and fecundity in well-known countries. The space
which Mr Sadler generally takes is a square mile. The population at the
Cape of Good Hope is, according to him, one to the square mile. That
of London is two hundred thousand to the square mile. The number of
children at the Cape, Mr Sadler informs us, is 5.48 to a marriage. In
London, he states it at 2.35 to a marriage. Now how can that of which
all the variations lie between 2.35 and 5.48 vary, either directly or
inversely, as that which admits of all the variations between one and
two hundred thousand? Mr Sadler evidently does not know the meaning of
the word proportion. A million is a larger quantity than ten. A hundred
is a larger quantity than five. Mr Sadler thinks, therefore, that there
is no impropriety in saying that a hundred is to five as a million is to
ten, or in the inverse ratio of ten to a million. He proposes to prove
that the fecundity of marriages varies in inverse proportion to the
density of the population. But all that he attempts to prove is that,
while the population i