be bound to provide for its own poor, and that overseers of the poor should be annually appointed, who, with the churchwardens, should raise, by a parish rate, competent sums for this purpose: the mode in which the assessment was directed to be made was, that the justices of the peace of every county or place corporate, or the major part of them, at the general sessions to be held after Easter following, and so yearly, as often as they should think fit, should rate every parish to such a weekly sum of money as they should think convenient; which sum, so taxed, was to be yearly assessed by an agree. ment of the parishioners within themselves, or in default thereof, by the churchwardens and petty constables, or by an order of the justices of the peace: and if any person refused or neglected to pay the portion of money so taxed, it might be levied by distress, and in default thereof, the person to be committed to prison till the money was paid. In this mode, or with very little variation, the poor's rate has continued to be annually levied; but as, from the increase of population, the advanced price of all the necessaries of life, and other causes, the number of the poor has been greatly augmented, the sum raised for their support has progressively advanced to a very important magnitude. According to an estimate, published by Dr. Davenant, of the sum raised by the poor's rate in England and Wales, in the latter part of the reign of Charles II. it amounted to 665,3621. As the number of the poor increased, it not only became necessary to raise a greater sum for their maintenance, but new cases arose with respect to the claims of individuals to this kind of relief, in consequence of which various acts were passed for explaining and amending the laws of the relief of the poor. In 1735, the House of Commons appointed a committee to consider of the existing laws relative to the maintenance and settlement of the poor, and what further provisions might be necessary for their better relief and employment. The committee came to several resolutions, which were agreed to by the house; the most important were, "that the laws in being, relating to the maintenance of the poor of this kingdom, are defective; and, notwithstanding they impose heavy burdens on parishes, yet the poor, in most of them, are ill taken care of:" and that it is very expedient, that the laws relating to the poor should be reduced into one act of parliament. In 1776, a return was ordered to be made to parliament of the total expenditure on account of the poor, for one year, ending at Easter; pursuant to which, accounts were received from 14,113 parishes, or places, in England and Wales, from which it appeared, that the aggregate sum expended was 1,530,8047. 68. 3d. and that there were then 1970 workhouses, capable of accommodating 89,775 persons. In 1786, a return was again ordered to be made, of the average annual expenditure of the three preceding years, when accounts were obtained from 14,240 parishes, or places, and the total was found to have increased, in the short period of ten years, to 2,004,238l. 58. 11d. since which time a still greater increase has taken place. In the year 1803, an act was passed for procuring returns relative to the expense and maintenance of the poor; from the answers and returns made pursuant thereto, the following particulars are derived. which accounts were received, 3765 paOut of 14,611 parishes and places from rishes maintain all, or part of, their poor in workhouses. The number of persons Easter 1803, was 83,468; and the expense so maintained, during the year ending incurred therein amounted to 1,016,4457. 158. 3d. being at the rate of 12. 38. 63d. for each person maintained in that man ner. The number of persons relieved out of workhouses was 956,248, besides 194,052, who were not parishoners. The expense, incurred in the relief of the poor, not in workhouses, amounted to 3,061,4467. 16s. 10d. A large proportion of those, who were not parishioners, appear to have been vagrants, and it is probable that the relief given to this class of poor could not exceed two shillings each, amounting to 19,4051. 4s. This sum being deducted from the above 3,061,446. 16s. 10d. leaves 3,042,0417. 128. 10d. being at the rate of 31. 38. 74d. for each parishioner rclieved out of any workhouse. The number of persons relieved in and out of workhouses, was 1,039,716, and as the resident population of England and Wales, in the year 1801, appeared from the returns made under the population act to have been 8,872,980, the number of parishoners relieved from the poor's rate appears to be twelve in, a hundred of the resident population. The expenditure, in suits of law, removal of paupers, and expenses of overseers and other officers, amounted to 190,0721. 17s. §d. and the sum expended in purchasing materials for employing the poor, to 47,5231. 11s. 44d. The poor of 293 parishes are stated, in the returns, to be farmed, or maintained under contract; and the poor of 764 parishes are maintained and employed under the regulations of special acts of parliament The total sum raised by the poor's rate, and other parochial rates, within the year ending Easter 1803, was 5,348,2057. 98. 34d. The average rate in the pound was, in England 48. 44d. and in Wales 78. 14d. the average of England Wales 4s. 54d. The great increase of the sum thus levied upon the public, and its present magnitude, naturally suggest a doubt, whether the established claim to this kind of relief may not have become, in many in stances, the dependance of idleness, instead of the support of age and helplessness. It is also probable, that the laws, by which the poor's rate was originally established, had no relation to the pecuniary relief of the able-bodied labourer, and that it was only meant for the relief of those, who either had no work, or who were unable to work. In later years, however, it has been generally extended to the relief of the labourer; and the quantity of that relief has been measured by the high price of provisions, which is one of the principal causes of the great augmentation of the poor's rate. Mr. Malthus, in his "Essay on the Principle of Population," advises the total abolition of this system of parochial relief, by proposing, that a regulation should be made, declaring that no child born from any marriage, taking place af ter the expiration of a year from the date of the law, and that no illegitimate child, born two years after the same date, should ever be entitled to parochial assistance.To give a more general knowledge of this law, he proposes, that the clergyman of the parish should, previously to every marriage, read a short address to the parties, stating the strong obligation on every man to support his own children, and the necessity, which had at length appeared, of abandoning all public institutions for their relief, as having produced effects totally opposite to those which were intended. See POPULATION. POPPY, we have, under the word PAPAVER, given a botanical account of the plant; we are now to speak of it as pro ductive of opium. The officinal poppy is a native of the southern parts of Europe, but it is thought to have been originally from Asia, where it is cultivated in great abundance. Opium, called, also, opium thebaicum, from its being anciently prepared chiefly at Thebes, has been long and highly celebrated as a medicine. It is imported into this country, and the continent of Europe, in flat cakes, covered with leaves, to prevent their sticking together. It has a reddish-brown colour, and a strong peculiar smell. It is the chief narcotic now employed; it acts directly upon the nervous power, diminishing the irritability and mobility of the system. From the sedative power of opium, by which it allays pain, inordinate action, and restlessness, it is employed in various diseases. Besides the sedative power, it is known to act more or less as a stimulant, exciting the motion of the blood; and by the conjoined effort of the sedative and stimulant effect, opium has been thought to produce intoxication, a quality for which it is much used in the eastern countries. The manner in which this drug is collected in the east is as follows: when the capsules are about half grown, at sun-set, they make two longitudinal double incisions, passing from below upwards, and taking care not to penetrate the internal cavity. The incisions are repeated every evening, until each capsule has received six or eight wounds; they are then allowed to ripen their seeds. If the wounds were made in the heat of the day, a cicatrix would be too soon formed. The night dews favour the distillation of the juice. Early in the morning old women, boys, and girls, collect the juice, by scraping it off, and deposit the whole in an earthen pot, where it is worked by the hands in the open sun-shine, until it becomes of a considerable thickness. It is then formed into cakes, of a globular shape, and of about four pounds each in weight, and laid into little earthen vessels to be further dried. They are then covered over with poppy or tobacco leaves, and thus dried, they are fit for sale. From a variety of experiments, made on a large scale, it is found, that opium may be obtained from the poppy cultivated in this country, which, in colour, consistence, taste, &c. is, in every respect, as good as that which is imported from foreign parts. It is thus procured: when the leaves die away and drop off, the capsules, being then in a green state, are cut in slits about an inch long, on one side of the head only: immediately on the inci sion being made, a milky fluid will issue out, which, being of a glutinous nature, will adhere to the bottom of the incision; but some are so luxuriant, that it will drop from the head. The next day, if the weather should be fine, the opium will be of a greyish substance, and then may be scraped off with the edge of a knife, and in a day or two it will be of a proper consistence to make into a mass, and to be put in pots. The white poppy is commonly considered as the officinal plant, but any of the varieties may be employed indiscriminately, since no difference is discovered in their sensible qualities or effects. The heads, or capsules, being boiled in water, impart a narcotic juice. The liquor, strongly pressed out, suffered to settle, clarified with whites of eggs, and evaporated to a due consistence, yields an extract, possessing the virtues of opium, only in a much milder degree. This is called the syrup of the white poppy, and is adapted to the use of children. It may be observed, that the seeds possess no narcotic powers; they consist of a simple farinaceous matter, united with an oil, and in some countries they are eaten as food. POPULATION, the proportion of inhabitants which a country or district contains. The increase or diminution of the members of a state has at all periods been thought an object deserving the attention of governments; but very different opinions have been entertained on the subject. Some ancient nations adopted regulations to prevent any augmentation of the number of citizens; but in modern times it has generally been thought proper to encourage population, as essential to the strength and prosperity of a state. Positive regulations against the increase of population are superfluous and nugatory; it is limited in every country by the means of subsistence, and if it ever actually passes this barrier, it must, in a very short time, be restored to its former level. So long as there is a faculty of subsistence, men will be encouraged to early marriages, and to a careful rearing of their children. In the American states, the inhabitants, particularly such as are engaged in agriculture, congratulate themselves upon the increase of their families, as upon a new accession of wealth; for the labour of their children, even in an early stage, soon redeems, and even repays with interest, the expense and trouble of rearing them. In such countries the wages of the labourer are high, for the number of labourers bears no proportion to the demand and to the general spirit of enterprise. In many European countries, on the other hand, a large family has become a proverbial expression for an uncommon degree of poverty and wretchedness. The obvious principle, that population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence, has been stated, and conclusions drawn from it, by many different writers; but it has lately been discussed at great length in an "Essay on the Principle of Population," by Mr. T. R. Malthus, who has endeavoured to prove that population invariably increases where the means of subsistence increase, unless prevented by some very powerful and obvious check; and that these checks, and the checks which repress the superior power of population, and keep its effects on a level with the means of subsistence, are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice, and misery. Under whatever denomination the causes which adjust population to the circumstances of the country may be classed, it is certain that they exist in every civilized country, and while the nature of man remains the same, they must continue to exist, although operating in a greater or less degree, according to the progress the country has made in cultivation, commerce, and political pow er. In the northern states of America, where the means of subsistence are more ample, the manners of the people more pure, and the impediments to early marriages fewer than in any of the modern states of Europe, the population was found to double itself for some successive periods every twenty-five years, while in Great Britain, where commerce and manufactures have created large towns, where an almost constant supply is wanting to recruit a formidable army and navy, and where many other causes exist, which prevent any considerable increase, the population has not doubled itself in more than one hundred and fifty years. If a powerful check to increase must exist in some form or other, Mr. Malthus observes, that it is clearly better it should arise from the foresight of the difficulty of rearing a family, and the fear of dependant poverty, than from the actual pressure of pain and sickness: moral restraint, or the determination to defer or decline matrimony, from a consideration of the inconveniences or deprivations to which a large portion of the community would subject themselves by pursuing the dictate of nature, is therefore a virtue, the practice of which is most earnestly to be encouraged. If no man were to marry, who had not a fair prospect of providing for the presumptive issue of his marriage, population would be kept within proper bounds; men and women would marry later in life, but in the full hope of their reward, they would acquire habits of industry and frugality, and inculcate the same in the minds of their children. Mr. Malthus does not actually propose that any restraint upon marriage between two persons of proper age should be enforced by law, but insists that the contract of marriages, between persons who have no other prospect for providing for their offspring than by throwing them on a parish, should not be, as it is at present, encouraged by law. With this view, he suggests a plan for the gradual abolition of the poor laws; but, until the poor are more enlightened, and better instructed in moral duties, it is much to be feared that the total abolition of these laws would produce much more vice and misery than at present exists among them. Although a knowledge of the state of the population has been deemed important in most countries, few attempts had been made to ascertain this circumstance with precision, till within a very late period. In the year 1757 a general enumeration was taken in the kingdom of Sweden, which has since been continued; but most of the other governments of Europe were satisfied with the returns of the number of houses, families, or persons paying particular taxes. It remained for the new government of the United States of America to set the example of a complete enumeration throughout a ve ry extensive territory, and apparently made with as much precision as the nature of the subject admits. The act of Congress, for the first census, passed the first of March, 1790; it directed the marshal of every district to superintend the enumeration of the state where he exercised his functions, and authorized him to call in what aid and assistance he might judge proper. He was ordered to make a return within nine months to the President of the United States, distinguishing in the return the number of free males under and above the age of sixteen years, the number of free females, and of slaves. The Indians, who might live in the districts, were not to be included in the list of population. Every assistant in the enumeration was directed, before transmitting his account to the marshal, was to affix it in two or three of the most frequented places of assembly within his bounds, that it might receive any corrections which the inhabitants might suggest. In this manner the census completed, and the result announced a population of 3,929,326 inhabitants, including 697,697 slaves. The inhabitants of the north-west territory were not included in this number, but the population of that part was then so inconsiderable, that it would have made no important difference in the total number. On the twenty-eighth of February, 1800, an act was passed for taking the second census, pursuant to which the returns transmitted to the President in December, 1801. The particulars of this enumeration, with the totals of the former, are given in the following statement: were The most striking circumstance which this account exhibits is, the great increase which has taken place since the enumeration in 1791, the addition being more than a third part of the whole number of inhabitants at that period, or 1,376,312 persons. Should they continue thus to increase one-third of their number in each succeeding ten years, they would, in about twenty-five years, equal the population of Great Britain, as it appeared by the account of 1801; but should they only make the same addition in each succeeding ten years, as in the above period, it would require about forty years to attain the same degree of population. The increase shown by the above account being much greater than any other civilized nation can boast, it may be doubted, whether, having already made such considerable progress, this increase will still continue; but the United States are so differently circumstanced from any European nation, with respect to the means of subsistence, that while they preserve peace with other powers, the vast tracts of unsettled lands which they possess, will long continue to favour the greatest natural increase of the inhabitants, as well as attract emigrants from other countries. Another peculiarity which these accounts present, is the proportion of males and females. In Great Britain, and most VOL. X. other parts of Europe, the number of females living has been found to exceed that of the males, although the difference is not so great as was formerly supposed; in America, however, the fact is the contrary, the number of the females being equal to that of the males only in three or four of the states, and taking the total numbers of males and females, the proportion is ninety-six females to one hundred males. The population of Great Britain was long a subject of great uncertainty, both with respect to the actual number of inhabitants, and their increase or diminution ; it became a subject of frequent controversy among writers on the internal policy and strength of the country, till it was at length set at rest by an act of parliament, passed 31st December, 1800, houses, families, and persons, to be named which directed a general enumeration of on the 10th March, 1801, in England and Wales, and in Scotland as soon as possi ble after that day. This difference was necessary, because, in the colder climate of Scotland, it was not certain that all parts of the country would be easily accessible so early in the year. An abstract of the answers and returns made, was laid before both houses of parliament, in December following, which though unavoidably defective in some respects, furnishes much unexceptionable information on the subject. Q |