The annual deaths vary according to the size of the cities as well as for the difference of their climates, seasons, &c. Further to illustrate these subjects, it may be proper to refer to some of the most esteemed European statements; Dr. Price thought that the annual London deaths were one in 21 of its inhabitants, and sir William Petty that one in 32 only died in each year throughout all England. There are many more favourable statements by persons of less celebrity for their attention to accuracy. But the following will be found near the present prevalent belief, with the best informed Europeans, viz. There die annually in all Europe, In great cities. In moderate towns. In the country. In the most healthy parts. 1 to 55 The count de Buffon supposed the yearly deaths in all France to average one in 32, and M. de Condorcet with other respectable writers, have given an easy rule by which to ascertain the population, by the bills of mortality; thus, multiply the births by 25, and they will give the number of the inhabitants of Paris: by this mode, to multiply the births of these states by 19, or the deaths by 41, the whole number of the inhabitants might be very nearly obtained, at least this is as near as the most careful attention of the author has yet been able to arrive at the fact in question. We ought not to omit in this note, the belief of many observing persons, that the timidity of the uninformed part of several cities and other communities, occasioned a concealment of a portion of their numbers, when the last census was taken, lest it might become the basis for a capitation tax. This opinion has been further confirmed by the known fact, that for the whole length of the states, in the most salubrious parts, (between the latitudes 37 and 46 north) a natural increase and duplication has been often realized in 16 to 18 years; but as many of the low, flat and moist grounds of the south, and all the cities, are found to be less favourable to the general increase, the census cannot be much under-rated, even if a few of the careful returning officers were thus partially disappointed. Another interesting fact has been less generally noted, namely, that people in the United States commonly live to a greater age than in Europe, on an average of ages throughout both countries. It is ascertained that about 1 in 8 live to the age of seventy in Connecticut, and for the whole extent of the healthiest parts of the country there is but little variation from this position. These and other causes connected will probably continue a rapid rate of increase for a century, or until there may be at least 90 persons for each square mile, beyond which number no addition for the further welfare or happiness of the people could be rationally desired in any country or commonwealth of the vast extent of these United States.-Witness the miseries of Asia, where the sword is often welcome! being preferred to pestilence and famine, the periodical and sometimes inevitable visitants of all countries burthened by excessive population. TABLE of the Probabilities of Life for Europe and for a medium of the United States. GENERAL TABLE FROM NEW YORK AND PHILACOUNT DE BUFFON. DELPHIA FOR 12 YEARS. Too much attention cannot be paid to the probabilities of life in forming tables for extensive insurance companies, where errors may prove ruinous. Dr. Price saved several London companies from such errors by revising their inaccurate tables, and by throwing all the fractions in their favour. For the preceding table a position has been assumed, on which the inquirist will exercise his own judgment. The average of the states have increased in a ratio doubling in 23 years, but as some of the most healthy and most prolific were proved by the census to have retained much less than their quota of this increase, it was obvious that the new states had been gainers by migration, nearly to the amount of all the difference in these views of the question; for on trying the position, with a slight variation only, by throwing the foreign emigrants into the scale, we find a natural balance of the statistical account in question. The following table will shew how many of the states have succeeded in freeing themselves from the burthen and reproach for boasting of their attachment to freedom, while they still hold their fellow mortals in the most servile bondage. Although it is to be lamented that the slaves do still increase, yet this increase is considerably less than that of the coloured freeds and whites, or than the total population, which doubles in about 23 years, but the slaves only in thirty, till the late importation by South Carolina. Every friend to humanity and to the planter's truest interests must rejoice, that the day prohibiting this barbarous traffic in human flesh, is fast approaching. In two years it must end forever by a law of the constitution. This law the eastern states have all anticipated, as may be seen by the table. Virginia also has become fully apprized of the evils which slavery have produced in that state: hence many of its best patriots have declared that the progress of their general weal has been as much retarded since the peace, as it was weakened in the revolutionary war by slavery, and by the advantages it gave to an enemy. As this subject is of primary importance we have subjoined the opinion of a respectable traveller (Strickland) for agricultural information, thus reported to the British board of agriculture, 1798. "The price of a slave is no test of his value as a labourer, but the quantity of work and its goodness. Nothing can be more inert than a slave; his unwilling labour is discovered in every step, he never moves if he can avoid it; if the eyes of the overseer be off he sleeps, and the ox and horse driven by a slave sleeps also; all is listless inactivity, where each motion is compulsory. Each slave that I have seen does not when at work perform half as much as a common labourer, nor does the business under which his master sits down contented appear to be half what we in England require to be done in the same time." He mentions also the wilful destruction and almost universal disposition to pilfer, &c. making in his estimate slave-labour much dearer than any other. This low estimate of the labour of slaves is very general, and existed in the time of sir William Petty, who, in endeavouring to estimate the productive and comparative value for an average of the labour of all England, rated the whites each equal to two good slaves in the colonies, which were then at 451. sterling or 200 dollars, and of course the whites at 901. or 400 dollars; but seamen and fishermen were by him in the same estimate rated at double the average of the rest of the community, or at 800 dollars, for which his interesting reasons should be examined. This estimate, as far as it is opposed to slavery, corresponds with that of every other rational calculating economist. But is this a subject for cold calculation? No, it is the cause of feeling! of humanity! of virtue in which the honor of an American is most deeply implicated, since it is well known that not a single state in the union can ultimately, if ever, be benefitted in any view whatever, by the continuation of slavery, a crime that brings with it ruin to the soil by slovenly cultivation, and idleness, with every species of vicious debauchery, to all classes of the community cursed with the abominable incumberance. |