the Goths would have been saved the trouble of sacking the city, as
the people must have perished for want.
-=-

[end of page #141]

fruits of the earth, but producing nothing, as they increase, in every
country where wealth prevails, may be considered as a cause of
depopulation, confined to no part of the world. Thus we find either the
same cause acting throughout, or different causes producing the same
effect in different countries; thereby reducing them all much more
nearly to an equality than we could at first imagine.

It has been observed, that when wealth comes to the working orders,
and makes them indulge in animal food, it produces a greater effect,
with respect to the consumption of produce, than if the same wealth
came into the hands of the rich; this is, however, in some degree,
compensated by their not keeping pleasure horses, the greatest of all
consumers of the produce of the earth. One horse will consume as
much as a family of four persons living on corn, and the ordinary
vegetables used in England; and as much as two families, living as
they do in Ireland or Scotland, on oat-meal, milk, and potatoes.

As we find depopulation one of the effects that is universally
occasioned by decline, it must originate in some cause equally
general, and that cause must be one attending the state of wealth and
greatness, for it does not appear to be a necessary effect of decline.
We can very easily conceive a people, degraded and numerous,
reduced to live poorly, as they do in Naples, Cairo, and some other
particular spots: but taking the whole of those countries together, we
find evident marks of a falling off in population; and we find it not
progressive, but of long standing. Those countries seem to have found
a new maximum of population, far inferior to the former standard,
immediately after they ceased to be wealthy and flourishing.

Perhaps it was from this cause that the idea of sumptuary laws
originated; for though, in some cases, the pride of being distinguished
might occasion the sovereign to enact, or the higher orders of society
to solicit them, yet they were always considered as tending to prevent
ruinous extravagance. When states become very wealthy, they may
consider such regulations as ridiculous, and perhaps they may neither
be necessary nor effectual; yet, nevertheless, there must be some cause
for the general opinion of their utility. Though it is not the fashion of
the present times to hold an