The proportion of the TABLE II. continued. 1 he proportion of the excess of births above Periods of doubling excess of births above Periods of doubling the deaths, to the in years and whole of the living. thoufandth parts. ten the deaths, to the in years and ten whole of the living. thousandth parts. CHAP. X. Effects of Epidemics on Regifters of Births, Deaths, and Marriages. Ir appears clearly from the appears clearly from the very valuable tables of mortality, which Sufimilch has collected, and which include periods of 50 or 60 years, that all the countries of Europe are fubject to periodical fickly feafons, which check their increase; and very few are exempt from those great and wafting plagues, which, once or twice perhaps in a century, fweep off the third or fourth part of their inhabitants. The way in which thefe periods of mortality affect all the general proportions of births, deaths, and marriages, is strikingly illuftrated in the tables for Pruffia and Lithuania, from the year 1692 to the year 1757.* 2 Suffimilch, Gottliche Ordnung, vol. i, table xxi, p. 83, of the tables. TABLE In 46 yr after 248777 1083872 690324 10: 43 100: 157 the plague In 62 good yrs 344361 1464388 936087 10 43 100: 156 936087 The table, from which this is copied, contains the marriages, births and deaths, for every particular year during the whole period; but to bring it into a fmailer compaís, I have retained only the general average drawn from the shorter periods of five and four years, except where the numbers for the individual years prefented any fact worthy of particular observation. The year 1711, mmediately fucceeding the great plague, is not included by Suffmilch in any general average; but he has given the particular numbers, and if they be accurate they fhow the very fudden and prodigious effect of a great mortality on the number of marriages. Suffmilch calculates, that above one third of the people was deftroyed by the plague; and yet, notwithstanding this great diminution of the population, it will appear by a reference to the table, that the number of marriages in the year 1711 was very nearly double the average of the fix years preceding the plague. To pro duce The number of people before the plague, according to Suffinilch's calculations, (vol. i, ch. ix, fect. 17 3.) was 570,000, from which if we subtract 247 733, the number dying in the plague, the remainder, 322,267, will be the population after the plague; which, divided by the number of marriages. and the number of births for the year 1711, makes the marriages about one twenty-fixth part of the population, and the |