It certainly seems very little probable that the population of China is fast increasing.

Every acre of land has been so long in cultivation that we can hardly conceive there is any great yearly addition to the average produce.

The fact, perhaps, of the universality of early marriages may not be sufficiently ascertained.

If it be supposed true, the only way of accounting for the difficulty, with our present knowledge of the subject, appears to be that the redundant population, necessarily occasioned by the prevalence of early marriages, must be repressed by occasional famines, and by the custom of exposing children, which, in times of distress, is probably more frequent than is ever acknowledged to Europeans.

Relative to this barbarous practice, it is difficult to avoid remarking, that there cannot be a stronger proof of the distresses that have been felt by mankind for want of food, than the existence of a custom that thus violates the most natural principle of the human heart.