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WILLIAMS' CASE. 249
of life interests in property; yet, from the continual oscilations of
oar population, it must be exceedingly difficult to make any correct
observations as to the average rate of mortality in any of our cities
or counties, or even in any of the states of our Union, (t) The
two strong ties, poverty and wealth, which prevent migrations,
have been often broken by the oppressions of government in the
old world; but in our country the universal parental care of the
government and the equal distribution of property, lifting all above
want, and dispersing, at short intervals, the great accumulations of
wealth, leave it in the power of all to remove at pleasure; so that
the peculiar temptations of advantage offered by the various regions
of our country cause continual and most extraordinary shiftings of
our population.
It is admitted as regards even the comparatively stationary cir-
cumstances of the cities of Europe, that a large allowance must be
made for the adult population annually poured into them from the
country, (u) But, as to the cities of this Union, the annual acces-
sion of some of them from the country has been so great as to con-
found all calculation. Philadelphia, perhaps, in this respect, the
most stationary among them, far exceeds any one of Europe in its
acquisitions from the country, (w) But the city of Baltimore, the
great emporium of Maryland, which was but a poor village in 1776,
at this time, (1831,) contains eighty thousand six hundred and
twenty persons; and may be regarded as almost an entirely new
aggregation from abroad within the ordinary term of human life.
It would therefore be impossible, as yet, to form any correct
table of the expectation of life within the city of Baltimore, (x)
The shiftings of the population of the several counties of Mary-
land have also been in many respects very extraordinary, and alto-
gether dissimilar from any thing observed of any district of the
country population of Europe. It appears, that, as a whole, Mary-
land has continued greatly to increase in population from its first
settlement down to the last census, (1830;) and yet, that most of
the lower counties within which the main strength of the state was
found, during the revolutionary war, have latterly diminished in
their population by having large portions of it, with a considerable
increase, after deducting the great mass thrown into the new regions
of the west, shifted into the upper counties; great spaces of which
(t) 1 Malthus Pop. 22.—(u) 1 Malthus Popu. 468.—(w) Seybert Stat. Ann. 48.—
(x) Seybert Stat. Ann. 48; 2 Price Obser. Essay 2.
32 v. 3
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