The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches-2 [125]
in fact employ it in explaining his principle, accompanied with an awkward explanation intended to signify that, though he said proportion, he meant something quite different from proportion. We should not have said so much on this subject either in our former article, or at present, but that there is in all Mr Sadler's writings an air of scientific pedantry, which renders his errors fair game. We will now let the matter rest; and, instead of assailing Mr Sadler with our verbal criticism, proceed to defend ourselves against his literal criticism. "The Reviewer promised his readers that some curious results should follow from his shuffling. We will enable him to keep his word. "'In two English counties,' says he, 'which contain from 50 to 100 inhabitants on the square mile, the births to 100 marriages are, according to Mr Sadler, 420; but in 44 departments of France, in which there are from one to two hecatares [hectares] to each inhabitant, that is to say, in which the population is from 125 to 250, or rather more, to the square mile, the number of births to one hundred marriages is 423 and a fraction.' "The first curious result is, that our Reviewer is ignorant, not only of the name, but of the extent, of a French hectare; otherwise he is guilty of a practice which, even if transferred to the gambling-table, would, I presume, prevent him from being allowed ever to shuffle, even there, again. He was most ready to pronounce upon a mistake of one per cent. in a calculation of mine, the difference in no wise affecting the argument in hand; but here I must inform him, that his error, whether wilfully or ignorantly put forth, involves his entire argument. "The French hectare I had calculated to contain 107,708 67/100 English square feet, or 2 47265/100000 acres; Dr Kelly takes it, on authority which he gives, at 107,644 143923/1000000 English square feet, or 2 471169/1000000 acres. The last French "Annuaires", however, state it, I perceive, as being equal to 2 473614/1000000 acres. The difference is very trifling, and will not in the slightest degree cover our critic's error. The first calculation gives about 258 83/100 hectares to an English square mile; the second, 258 73/100; the last, or French calculation 258 98/100. When, therefore, the Reviewer calculates the population of the departments of France thus: 'from one to two hectares to each inhabitant, that is to say, in which the population is from 125 to 250, or rather more, to the square mile; his 'that is to say,' is that which he ought not to have said--no rare case with him, as we shall show throughout." We must inform Mr Sadler, in the first place, that we inserted the vowel which amuses him so much, not from ignorance or from carelessness, but advisedly, and in conformity with the practice of several respectable writers. He will find the word hecatare in Ree's Cyclopaedia. He will find it also in Dr Young. We prefer the form which we have employed, because it is etymologically correct. Mr Sadler seems not to know that a hecatare is so-called, because it contains a hundred ares. We were perfectly acquainted with the extent as well as with the name of a hecatare. Is it at all strange that we should use the words "250, or rather more," in speaking of 258 and a fraction? Do not people constantly employ round numbers with still greater looseness, in translating foreign distances and foreign money? If indeed, as Mr Sadler says, the difference which he chooses to call an error involved the entire argument, or any part of the argument, we should have been guilty of gross unfairness. But it is not so. The difference between 258 and 250, as even Mr Sadler would see if he were not blind with fury, was a difference to his advantage. Our point was this. The fecundity of a dense population in certain departments of France is greater than that of a thinly scattered population in certain counties of England. The more dense, therefore, the population in those departments of France, the stronger was our case. By putting 250, instead of 258, we understated our