good man had heard the fact
asserted by his nurse when he was a child,--had always considered it as
a strong confirmation of the Scriptures, and fully believed it without
having ever thought of verifying it. The king ordered a man and woman,
the leanest that could be found, to be brought before him, and desired
his spiritual instructor to count their ribs. The father counted over
and over, upward and downward, and still found the same number in both.
He then cleared his throat, stammered, stuttered, and began to assure
the king that though he had committed a little error in saying that a
woman had more ribs than a man, he was quite right in saying that the
first woman was made out of the rib of the first man. "How can I tell
that?" said the king. "You come to me with a strange story which you say
is revealed to you from heaven. I have already made you confess that
one half of it is a lie: and how can you have the face to expect that I
shall believe the other half?"

We have shown that Mr Sadler's theory, if it be true, is as much a
theory of superfecundity as that of Mr Malthus. But it is not true. And
from Mr Sadler's own tables we will prove that it is not true.

The fecundity of the human race in England Mr Sadler rates as follows:--

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

From To Counties Number of births per 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

Having given this table, he begins, as usual, to boast and triumph.
"Were there not another document on the subject in existence," says he,
"the facts thus deduced from the census of England are sufficient to
demonstrate the position, that the fecundity of human beings varies
inversely as their numbers." In no case would these facts demonstrate
that the fecundity of human beings varies inversely as their numbers
in the right sense of the words inverse variation. But certainly
they would, "if there were no other document in existence," appear
to indicate something like what Mr Sadler means by inverse variation.
Unhappily for him, however, there are other documents in existence; and
he has himself furnished us with them. We will e