Obfervations on Bills of Mortality.

THE following may serve as a text for another lesson in the art of reasoning. It is extracted from the Giornale Encyclopedica d'Italia.

"With regard to the augmentation or diminution of population in cities and towns, the result of a great many observations prove how much the first are unfavourable to the human species. Man, who, by an instinct of nature, is a sociable being, finds destruction in society itself, or, to speak more truly, in the abuse of society. In Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, the lifts of births is always inferior to that of deaths. From thence it happens that in this last city, in a determined time, there were only 3855 births, while the deaths amounted to 5054. On the contrary, in the country, where the air is more pure, where agriculture flourishes, where the manners of the people are more simple, the propagation augments in a manner still more rapidly."

Thus far the text; and the conclusions seem to be very fairly deducible from the facts; yet it will be no difficult matter to shew that these conclufions are extremely unjust. Not to mention here the difficulty of getting at a fair state of facts, respecting births or burials in any one place, which has been often remarked, and which greatly invalidates the force of any conclufions, I mean here to shew, that supposing these regis. ters had been kept with the greatest possible accuracy, nothing like the conclusions above specified could be inferred from the facts here stated, unless many other particulars had been carefully marked, that have never been adverted to in any of these calculations.

It is, for example, inferred, that fince the deaths in Berlin have regularly exceeded the births in that city by near 1200 a year, that therefore Berlin must be a very unwholesome place, and greatly prejudicial to the increase of the human species; and that because in some country places the births always exceed the deaths in a great proportion, these must be proportionally favourable to it. But from this fact confidered alone, it might have been quite the reverse. The town might perhaps be far more wholesome than the country.

Berlin, notwithstanding this amazing mortality, has been found to increase in population during the period above named. Hence our political calculators have justly inferred, that this augmentation must have been occafioned by an influx of inhabitants from some other part of the world. But here they have stopt. They had only to advance a single step farther; and then they must have seen, that of all those inhabitants who have come to Berlin from other parts, no one of their births could enter into the registers of that place, though all their deaths must be there recorded. Now, if 1200 people flocked to that town annually, and there took up their abode, it must of necessity happen, that on an average the deaths must exceed the births by that num ber, let the place be as favourable for the human race as you can suppose. In like manner, if these 1200 went from the country into the town, all their births must have appeared in the registers there, and none of their deaths; so that it would appear by these registers that the country was as surprisingly favourable, as the town was unfavourable for the human race. This, it is plain, is a mere fallacy; an argument that may tend to mislead, because the error is not extremely obvious, but which never ought to be employed by any one who pretends to philofophic precision.

The fact is, that in every fituation, whether favourable for the human race, or the reverse, where the influx of strangers from other places is confiderable, the deaths must be more numerous in proportion to the births, if the registers be accurate, than they would

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have been, if no such influx had happened; and the greater that influx is, the greater must be that disproportion.

Hence it must neceffarily happen, that if we are to judge of the increase or decrease of population from the bill. of mortality only, our conclufion will be always exactly the reverse of what it would be, if we take an actual enumeration: For wherever, from an actual enumeration, we find that the population is augmenting in a very rapid manner, we would conclude from the bills of mortality, that they were decreasing very faft.

In like manner, if people are emigrating fast from any country, could we obtain an accurate lift of the births and the deaths, we should say that the births fo far exceeded the deaths, as to afford the clearest proof of a rapid increasing population; whereas, were we to take an actual enumeration, we would be forced to draw a conclufion directly the reverse.

These few observations may serve to shew how little reliance is to be had on those general and vague declamations that have been often repeated with fo much confidence on this subject. Many other fources of fallacy respecting this subject, might be pointed out but this might tend to perplex some. It is enough at this time to have developed this single particular, as it may ferve to inspire those with a small degree of diffidence, who begin to speculate upon fuch matters.

I shall only add, that it is not here intended to infinuate that the occupations of a country life are not more favourable to the augmentation of the human fpecies, than those of large towns; but merely that the proof of this fact arising from a comparative view of the bills of mortality is entirely fallacious. Much false reasoning, and many erroneous conclufions have been founded on these data by political writers, within the prefent century.

SIR,

To the Editor of the Bee.

HAVING an opportunity of sending you a letter, I offer you a little morfel for your Bee. 'Tis an Arabian tale I never faw in print; at least it has not been hackneyed about in periodical publications.

Arabian Anecdote.

Three Arabs, brethren of a noble family, who were travelling together for the improvement of their " minds, were accidentally met by a camel driver, who " asked them, if they had not seen a camel, which had

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strayed from him in the night.

• Was not the ca

" mel blind of an eye?" said the eldest. " the man. ' It had a tooth out before,' "cond. It is very true,' he replied.

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a little lame?" added the third. • Why really it was, "returned the owner. Taking it for granted then, " that they had feen his beast, he befought them to " tell him which way it went. • Follow us, friend,' "faid they. He did fo, and had not gone far, till he happened to say, that the camel was loaden with corn. And it had, continued the Arabians, a veffel " of oil on one fide, and a vessel of honey on the other. "-It had fo, said the driver; therefore let me conjure

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you to tell me where you met it. Met it! cried the " eldest of the brethren, why we never saw your ca"mel at all. The man lofing patience at this, began " to load them with reproaches; and as they were

paffing through a village, he raised the people, and "caused them * to be apprehended. The Cadi or

* If this story was a fact, it is not improbable, that from this circumstance arose that oriental proverb ;--" If any one ask you, if you " have seen the camel, anfwer no!" i. e. do not, by impertinent con

versation, involve yourself in difficulties.

VOL. III.

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Judge of the town, before whom they were brought, " not being able to determine the cause, sent them to the

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prince of the country, who, perceiving by their be"haviour, that they were persons of distinction, set " them at liberty, lodged them in his palace, and treat"ed them with all imaginable respect. After some days, " he took an occasion of politely requesting, that they " would clear up the mystery of the camel, and ex

plain how they could possibly hit upon so many par" ticulars, without ever having seen it. The young " men smiled at the importunity of the prince; and af

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ter having returned him abundance of thanks for the " civilities they had received, the senior of the bre"thren thus spoke: We are neither deceivers nor necromancers; neither did we use any other instruments " of divination than our senses and reason: for my part, " I judged it was blind, because, as we went along, I " observed the grass eaten up on one fide of the road, " and not on the other. And I, faid the fecond, guessed " it had lost a tooth before, as where the grafs was

cropped closest, there was constantly a little tuft left "behind. And I, added the third, concluded it was " lame, because the prints of three feet were distinct in "the road, whereas the impression of the fourth was blur" red; whence I concluded, that the animal bad dragged

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it, and did not fet it to the ground. All this I appre" hend, faid the King; but how in the name of won

der, could you difcover that oil and honey made a " part of its loading? Why, rejoined the travellers;

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This, upon finding our first surmise was right, we " afterwards conjectured, from remembering we had " seen, on one fide of the path, little troops of ants ferreting the grass; and on the other, the flies "affembled here and there in groups, infomuch that " few or none were on the wing."

Whether, Sir, this eastern anecdote be true or false, matters not much, fince, in either case, it exactly represents what it was meant to express, the quick