It was openly asserted that there were one hundred thousand women in England made dissolute by the clergy.
In my history of the "American Civil War," I have presented some reflections on this point, which I will take the liberty of quoting here: "What, then, does this stationary condition of the population mean?
It means, food obtained with hardship, insufficient clothing, personal uncleanness, cabins that could not keep out the weather, the destructive effects of cold and heat, miasm, want of sanitary provisions, absence of physicians, uselessness of shrine-cure, the deceptiveness of miracles, in which society was putting its trust; or, to sum up a long catalogue of sorrows, wants, and sufferings, in one term--it means a high death-rate.
"But more; it means deficient births.

And what does that point out?
Marriage postponed, licentious life, private wickedness, demoralized society.
"To an American, who lives in a country that was yesterday an interminable and impenetrable desert, but which to-day is filling with a population doubling itself every twenty-five years at the prescribed rate, this awful waste of actual and contingent life cannot but be a most surprising fact.

His curiosity will lead him to inquire what kind of system that could have been which was pretending to guide and develop society, but which must be held responsible for this prodigious destruction, excelling, in its insidious result, war, pestilence, and famine combined; insidious, for men were actually believing that it secured their highest temporal interests.

How different now! In England, the same geographical surface is sustaining ten times the population of that day, and sending forth its emigrating swarms.

Let him, who looks back, with veneration on the past, settle in his own mind what such a system could have been worth." These variations in the population of Europe have been attended with changes in distribution.