The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1848-05-19


writer on this subject has brought forward facts
and reasonings that have been entirely over
looked by writers on political economy, and
which will torcibly strike every thinking mind.
he assumes that it any species, animal or We
getable, receives an immoderate supply of nu-
tfement, or becomes plrihoiic, ii does not pro-
duce itself but sparingly, if at all-that if very
moderate alimentbe administered, they become
prolific and reproduce themselves.
He says: sit is familiar and well known
fact that over stimulation, by an excess of ma
nure, causes most of the grains to fail in pro-
ducing seed, and to cause the single Towering
plants to become double, by transformation
of stamens into petals. in which case they are
always seedless. 1t exceedingly rare that you
can find poor, healthy and laborious parents
without an excess of offspring; indeed, "chil
dren, the poor mans blessing" has become an
adage. Look into the by-ways and alleys of
towns and cities, and into the mansions of the
wealthy and high livers, and the indications of
this theory are visible.
son this assumption the decrease of the
Peerage and Baronetage of England is at once
accounted for. How often it occurs that the
large estates of the Oldest families become ex-
tinct in the direct line, and some discarded
offshoot, perhaps once poor emigrant to this
country, succeeds TO the honors aud boarded
millions of an ancient and time honored name
The Quaker families are found TO be dimin-
ishing in numbers. They are almost exclu-
sively, from their peculiar tenets, that enforce
prudence, industry and economy either wealthy
or above want--and consequently never find it
necessary to buffet the storms of poverty and
adversely, and from the necessity of intermar-
riage among themselves, increase the influence
OF non productiveness.
Look at poor, famished, starving Ireland,
evidently the most prolific country on the
globe; their immense emigration, disease and
starvation, does not keep pace with the births.
The same reasoning applies TO the blacks at the
South; the whole navy of the United States
could not remove and colonIse them as fast as
they increase. China is overstocked with pop
ulation, merely from the want of food, or from
their inability TO procure rich and generous
diet, or even plenty CT any kind.
"The whole animal creation is subject to the
same laws. Every farmer knows that PAM
pered, high fed and fat animal, which requires
no exercise to procure its daily food, is not in
fit state to produce its kind; i'm fact it is bar
rem. These facts all go to prove that constant
labor, and stinting OF nutritious food, even to
state bordering on restitution are favorable TO
the reproduction of all organized beings; aud
the opposite state, of high and generous living,
where the pallid appetite is provoked with the
most pungent provocatives, or any state ap-
preaching TO it, is unfavorabe, and often UNI
favorable to that desire of offspring that is in
herent in every human breast
1t is very easy TO make out a very strong
case from few facts-a case apparently i'm
pregnable to overthrow. But let an array of
facts be presented on the other side, and the
fabrics become apparently founded upon sand.
This is our opinion in relation TO the above
theory. The Highlands of Scotland are poor
to proverb, both in the comforts of life and
in the reproduction of the species. Does the
half starved Esquimlux increase rapidly, or the
fed Russian serfs? Nav do we not
all know that as the mass of the people in any
land comfortably fed and clothed, SO in /
proportion is life prolonged, aye, and life in
creased too