صفحة 203 من 2651

But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is

extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children. The tender

plant is produced; but in so cold a soil, and so severe a

climate, soon withers and dies. It is not uncommon, I have been

frequently told, in the Highlands of Scotland, for a mother who

has born twenty children not to have two alive. Several officers

of great experience have assured me, that, so far from recruiting

their regiment, they have never been able to supply it with drums

and fifes, from all the soldiers' children that were born in it.

A greater number of fine children, however, is seldom seen

anywhere than about a barrack of soldiers. Very few of them, it

seems, arrive at the age of thirteen or fourteen. In some places,

one half the children die before they are four years of age, in

many places before they are seven, and in almost all places

before they are nine or ten.