Essai sur les probabilités de la durée de la vie humaine (1746).- Reponse aux objections. . (1746). Addition à l'essai (1760).—These works are in the library of the British Museum, entered in the catalogue under the head, Parcieux. The Reponse is bound up with the Addition. De Moivre, Doctrine of Chances, 3rd ed. (1756), penultimate page. [Histoire de l'Académie Royale, Année 1768, p. 155.-Éloge de M. De Parcieux.-Richard Price, Observations on Reversionary Payments, 4th ed. (1783), vol. ii. p. 189.-Maseres, Principles of Life Annuities (1783), Preface.-Tetens, Einleitung zur Berechnung der Leibrenten (1785), p. 79.-F. Baily, Doctrine of Life Annuities, p. 13.-Milne, Valuation of Annuities (1815), vol. ii. p. 555, and p. 574.-Assurance Magazine, vol. ii. p. 205, and vol. xv. p. 175.-Farr, Vital Statistics, p. 439.-Deparcieux's celebrated tables are given in some of the passages above referred to. Other references, and a version of the tables, will be found in the article on Deparcieux in Walford's Insurance Cyclopædia.] F. Y. E. DE PARIEU. See PARIEU, ESQUIROL DE. DEPARTMENT. A separate branch division of the public administration. or The varying character and the great extent of the administrative functions of the state necessarily require for their efficient discharge a similar division of labour and concentration of specialised knowledge and skill to that which is arranged in any well-organised industrial undertaking. It is not too much to say that without the most elaborate division and subdivision of official duties, and their concentration within appropriate areas, executive government would be impossible. In addition to the advantages which ordinarily follow the specialisation of function, an esprit de corps, or desire to look with a single eye to the efficiency of a particular department, is fostered amongst the more responsible members of its staff. Such a result is of the greatest possible value to the public at large, although it is probable that in our own country it has been gained at the expense of the necessary "integration," and that too little regard has been paid to the necessity for that "intimacy and firmness of the connections between the separate parts" upon which the well-being of organisms, physical, industrial, or social, must depend. In the desire to avoid increase of expenditure, or the undertaking of duties not quite in line with its own special functions, a department will at times be unwilling to perform services which would be of advantage to the community, and apart from the cabinet or the treasury-the one too much pressed with business of the first importance, the other looking at all questions mainly from the financial side-no means of rectifying the separatist tendency exists. As may be supposed from the varying requirements of the public service, the actual division of the administration into departments varies from time to time. Some of them, as in the case of the treasury, the privy council office, the home office, and the foreign office, are of old standing, whilst others, as in the case of the office of the secretary for Scotland and the board of agriculture, have only recently been constituted. A reference to the particulars given in the annual estimates for civil services will afford interesting evidence of the extension of the functions of government in this country in a comparatively recent period. The statement as to the "accounting departments and services" prefixed to the estimates shows that, leaving out of account the war office, the admiralty, and the three revenue departments-customs, inland revenue, and post office-the main divisions of the public service were sixty-four in number, of which nine were exclusively Scotch and seventeen Irish. Of these five may be said to exist for the control and service of the remainder, viz. the treasury, office of works, civil service commission, exchequer and audit department, and the stationery office. The number of officers employed and the amount voted to be accounted for by these departments for the year 1892-93, and by some of the other principal departments of the state, is shown in the following table: DEPARTMENT-DEPOPULATION DEPARTMENT (FRANCE). A term applied to the principal territorial and administrative area-existing in France. The division of that country into departments was first effected by the decree of the 22nd December 1789, the arrangement being embodied in Art. I. of the Constitution of 1791. There are at the present time eighty-six departments, or eighty-seven if the "territory of Belfort," the remnant of one of the departments ceded to Germany in 1871, be regarded as a separate department. Since 1889, the three departments of Algeria have also been treated, for most purposes, as part of France proper. The area of a department ranges from 184 square miles in the case of the Seine to 3597 square miles in the case of the Landes, the average being about 2300 square miles, or more than one-third the area of Wales. A department is administered by a prefect appointed by and representative of the central authority. He is assisted by a conseil général, elected by universal suffrage, and a council of prefecture, nominated by the central authority, for the purpose of deciding legal questions and advising the prefect when asked to do so. Each department is divided into "arrondissements," these again into "cantons," and the "cantons" into " communes." [See Block's Dictionnaire de l'administration française, and Dictionnaire Général de la Politique.-"Local Government in France," by M. Waddington, Nineteenth Century, July 1888.] T. H. E. DEPOPULATION (TERM). The laying waste, destroying, and unpeopling of a place (Co. 12 Rep. p. 30), stated to be "now the apparent effect of enclosing lordships and manors, whereby several good old villages have been reduced from a great number of sufficient farms to a few cottages," by Cowel (Interpreter, ed. 1637), in whose time an extensive inquiry into the depopulation of the rural districts was carried out. The same writer states that Depopulatores agrorum "were so called because, by prostrating and ruining houses, they seemed to depopulate towns"; and depopulatio agrorum was a great offence at common law for which benefit of clergy was denied. The pulling down of farm-houses and conversion of arable into pasture was checked by 4 Henry VII., and other well-known acts throughout the Tudor period (Cunningham, I. 468). Depopulation might also ensue from excessive taxation or purveyance (Dialogus, i. 8). The unit of prosperity in the earlier and later inquisitions alike was the plough itself— the extent of depopulation being ascertained by the reduced number of ploughs in each village. H. Ha. DEPOPULATION, IN RELATION TO ECONOMIC HISTORY, has hitherto been chiefly considered as a remarkable but disconnected pheno 551 menon. Thus, while it is usual to dilate upon the alarming proportions of this social movement at several distinct periods of our history, it has not always occurred to the general historian to regard it as a visitation, possible under the political environments of every age. The truth is that the same causes-the visitation of God and the inhumanity of manhave not infrequently operated to produce the same results throughout successive centuries. At uncertain, though constantly recurring intervals, this social scourge has hindered the fairest prospects of industrial progress. Though in recent years less known as a factor in economic life, in earlier days depopulation saddened the reigns of powerful monarchs-causing alike the exultation of foreign enemies or trade rivals and the lament of successive generations of social reformers. The depopulation of Saxon and Norman England was rather general than local, and of historical rather than economic interest, except for the insight that is afforded by it into the industrial resources of the country. The recurring pestilences and famines, and the partial invasions of the next three centuries left an equally indelible mark upon the page of history; but it is with individual enterprise and the public policy which governed its ceaseless workings from the 14th to the 17th century that we are especially concerned. The "peace of the plough is perhaps a fanciful term applied to a very real force in the national polity. It denotes a predominant interest in the pursuit of agriculture, as forming the very basis of the industrial life of the nation. Herein its chief wealth was invested, hereby its entire finances were adjusted, and the ploughshare and the reaping-hook continued to be idealised as the symbols of native industry for centuries after they had been practically replaced by the shepherd's crook and the weaver's shuttle. Therefore, from Saxon times onwards we find the peace of the plough preserved by a succession of remedial measures intended to foster a frequently declining industry. It is to be remembered that down to the close of the 13th century not only the main resources of the country but the chief part of the royal revenue were derived from this source. This is the period of the great prædial surveys, and of agricultural treatises; the period of CARUCAGE and SCUTAGE (q.v.), and of royal commissions of inquiry into the grievances of the rural community. The Dialogus de Scaccario alludes to one of these inquisitions in the well-known story of the king on his progress being waylaid by husbandmen bearing their idle ploughshares aloft "as a symbol of agricultural depression." A few original fragments of another inquisition of the 12th century have survived, which almost anticipate the complaints of the English peasant insurgents of the few perhaps as complete as the comma returns made in the year 1517 (Lead. MSS.. 1. 60, and the still more extensive returns maje in pursuance of letters patent dated 20th August 1618, which have hitherto been little known (Chancery Records, Fatty Bay. Inpepanation J 10th century. The Saxon Chronicle zinash From the close of the 14th to the beginning of the 17th century we can trace the depopulation of the English rural districts in the complaints and remonstrances of the oppressed, backed by a long string of useless remedial measures, not wholly inspired as might be supposed by the goodwill of visionary churchmen, benevolent despots, and alarmist legislators, but by the far-seeing policy of the great ministers of the crown, the obvious meaning of which is apparent in most of the economic tracts of the 16th century as a preparation for the deadly struggle between the landed and the moneyed interests. In one aspect the Statute of Labourers itself was devised for the encouragement of tillage. It was so expressed in its later editions, and almost simultaneously the act of depopulating is mentioned as a felony. All through the 15th century the evil grew while the feudal system dwindled. The feudal surveys of Henry VI. are an instructive commentary upon the Testa de Nevill on the one hand and the Statute of Fines on the other. It was in the reign of Henry VII. that the suffering consequent on inclosures was first brought prominently forward in a well-known statute. however, and the similar measures of the next four reigns seem to have given no real relief to the congested districts. Even the partial migration of labour to the towns was insufficient to cope with this distress. The real solution was the increased employment of labour made possible by the success of convertible husbandry. This, There are many valuable materials extant to enable us to estimate both the causes and the extent of this depopulation in the 16th century, This latter instrument recites that the crown being given to understand that there are in many parts of England, and notably in the county of Bedford, many bocses palled downe, lett to decay, standinge voide and uninhabited, or the ground that of former tymes belonged to iwellinge-bouses dismembered and taken from them and greate quantities of ground heretofore used for arrable converted to pasture, by which and by many other sinyster and corrupt practises and devises our Realme is in many partes wasted and depopulated to the grievance of our people the damage of our estate and against the ancient common lawes and statutes of our Realme, and which we are determined to remeadie and redresse," the lord-lieutenants and certain knights and esquires of several of the home counties, to which this inquisition seems to have been confined, are hereby empowered to inquire by a sworn jury and examination of witnesses as to the facts alleged in the schedule. The articles of the inquiry are to the following effect:-(1) How many towns, villages, churches, hamlets, boroughs, parishes, dwelling-houses, farms or farmhouses, families, ploughs, or tenancies in the county of Bedford have since the twenty-fourth year of Elizabeth been depopulated, and by whose fault and by what means; and the population maintained before and after such depopulation; (2) what grounds have been converted from tillage into pasture; (3) what lands have been severed from the farm-buildings; (4) what farm buildings have been pulled down; (5) who hold more than one farm; (6) who have evicted their tenants; (7) what inclosures have been made. The returns to this inquiry, which were ordered to be made into the Chancery before the October following, give us a complete picture of the agrarian revolution during a given period within a given district. They are as complete in their way as the Hundred Rolls of the 13th century, and they may be regarded as the summary of the agrarian question before it disappeared from public view for another two centuries. It was upon the evidence of this commission that the lawyers of the 17th century based their definitions of depopulation and it is in this connection that it has descended to us as an economic term. [Cunningham, vol. ii. Appendix.-The Inquisition of 1517, edited by I. S. Leadam.-Transactions of R. Hist. Soc. (N.S.) vol. vi. pp. 167-314.] H. Ha. DEPOPULATION (CAUSES). The term depopulation is now used in a sense very different from that originally assigned to it. Such a true DEPOPULATION depopulation, or stripping a country of its inhabitants, as has occurred in the past in Mesopotamia, Syria, and parts of central Asia, is scarcely known in these days, but the term depopulation is now applied to the case of any country, or part of a country, in which the population as measured from time to time is found to be diminishing. The causes of depopulation are numerous; for convenience they may be grouped under three headings, physical, political, and economic, but usually several causes contribute to the result. A. PHYSICAL CAUSES.-(1) Volcanic eruptions, within the usually restricted limits of their action, produce more considerable effects than might be supposed, both in direct destruction of life and in rendering large tracts of country incapable of cultivation. Among the more notable outbursts of volcanic force which have thus caused depopulation may be mentioned the eruptions of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. and again in 1822; of Etna in 1669, which destroyed fourteen villages; of Papandayang in Java in 1772, which is said to have buried 40 villages with 3000 persons; of Galungung, also in Java, in 1822, which killed 4000 people; of the Volcan de Agua in Guatemala in 1541; of Skaptar Jökull in 1783, which destroyed onesixth of the inhabitants and one-half of the live stock of Iceland, and rendered great part of the island permanently sterile; of the "king | of volcanoes," Mauna Loa, in Hawaii, in the years 1855, 1868, and 1881; of the oil wells at Baku in 1887; and of Tomboro, in the island of Sumbawa in 1815, said to have destroyed 12,000 people. Again in 1883 one of the most remarkable outbursts of which we have records occurred in Krakatoa, causing a loss of life estimated at the time to amount to 75,000; while lastly, Tarawera in 1886 covered a large tract of the north island (New Zealand) with mud and ashes. (See, for volcanic phenomena generally, Humboldt's Cosmos). (2) Floods.-The Ho-ang Ho affords the most striking instances,-in 1851-53 it changed its course and buried whole villages in mud; in 1888, breaking down its banks once more, it gave rise to an appalling catastrophe, overwhelming it is said at least one million of people and causing subsequently widespread famine. (3) Changes of climate, more especially drought, due to the neglect of irrigation works, or the destruction of forests, may cause the land to be incapable of sustaining as large a population as formerly. The condition of Mesopotamia since its conquest by the Turks in 1515 is a conspicuous example of the former, North China of the latter, case. Mr. J. A. Baines, census commissioner of India, says (Times of India, 18th April 1891) that the census proved that a local malarial fever had caused considerable emigration from Rajshahye and Nuddea in Bengal. 553 (4) Pestilence was formerly in Europe, as it is still in Asia, both a potent and a frequent cause of depopulation (see BLACK DEATH). In modern times the epidemics of cholera in 1849, 1853, 1854, 1857, and 1866, of smallpox in 1871, and of influenza in 1890, 1891, and 1892 decidedly checked the natural increase of the population in several countries of Europe (see Statistical Chronology of Plagues and Pestilence as affecting Human Life, etc., by C. Walford, 1884). (5) Famines resulting from failure of crops due to exceptional seasons or plagues of locusts, or to great disasters such as the bursting of their banks by rivers, have often been greatly aggravated by pestilence or war; in fact, these three causes are frequently inseparably bound together. The most notable instance in recent times of famine causing considerable depopulation in Europe occurred in Ireland in 1847, but in India famines still from time to time greatly check the growth of population. Great famines occurred in 1770, 1781-83, 1790-92, and even so recently as 1860-61 half a million of people perished from famine in NorthWest India, while in 1865-66 it is believed that one and a half million perished in Orissa. However, in 1874 and 1876 the efforts of the Government were so far effectual as to prevent any great loss of life except in a few districts. Mr. Baines (Times of India, 18th April 1891) says that the famine tracts of Madras, which showed considerable depletion in 1881, filled up rapidly by 1891 owing to the return of emigrants or to actual immigration from other districts. There was an awful famine in North China in 1877-78 in which millions are reported to have perished (see Famines of the World, etc., by C. Walford, Journal of the Statistical Society, vol. xli. 433, vol. xlii. 79). B. POLITICAL CAUSES.-(6) War, involving as it once did the massacre of women and children, and the carrying off of whole nations into slavery, has been a most powerful cause of depopulation, especially in Asia and Africa. The extinction of aboriginal races in recent times has often been a result of increasing population, the stronger race displacing the weaker, but the conquests of such nations of warriors as the Matabele have caused great diminution of more civilised races like the Mashonas. Modern wars are comparatively short in duration, while owing to sanitary precautions pestilences do not so often follow in their train. Thus it has been said that the war between Prussia and Austria in 1866 was the first in which more men were killed in action than died of sickness. In France in 1854 and 1855 the deaths exceeded the births by 69,318 and 35,606 respectively, and in Austria in 1866 by 57,881; in both this result was the combined effect of cholera and war. In France again in 1870 and 1871 there was an excess of deaths over births of 103,394 and 444,889 respectively, a disastrous result of the war, the commune, and an epidemic of small pox. (7) Actual deportation of the people, as in the familiar instances of the Jews in the Babylonian captivity, the Jews expelled from Spain (1492), and the Moors also from that country (1609). This heading connects itself with the next one to be considered. (8) Religious persecution drove the Huguenots from France, the Pilgrim Fathers from England, and is now driving the Jews from Russia, to the great economic disadvantage of the persecuting country in each case. (9) Bad government is not perhaps directly a great cause of depopulation, but indirectly it assists. Restrictions on trade, oppressive taxation, bad land laws, capricious interference with the liberty of the subject, as well as social and political agitation, all discourage the growth of population; but of all acts of government probably compulsory military service has most effect in stimulating emigration. C. ECONOMIC CAUSES.-Though the action of these is often not so obvious as in the case of natural and political causes, and is often difficult to unravel satisfactorily, yet they are really far more powerful than all the other causes put together. (10) The repeal of the Poor Law.-The old law of settlement in England was intended to prevent men from leaving their native parishes; it was a protective measure which tended to keep up artificially the number of the rural population; its repeal naturally facilitated migration and to that extent contributed to local depopulation. The same is true of the abolition of out-door relief to able-bodied men. The poor law has, however, in some cases produced the same result in an opposite way: i.e. some landlords, to prevent the poor from becoming chargeable upon the land, cleared their estates of cottages and so caused a veritable depopulation within a limited area. (11) The formation of deer forests.-Some Scotch landowners, finding they could obtain better rents by devoting their land to sporting purposes, have followed the classical example of William the Conqueror, and removed all agricultural tenants with a view to making deer forests. Naturally this has taken place only in those parts of the Highlands where the land was poor and ill adapted to agriculture. To some extent the inhabitants have found compensating employment in meeting the personal wants of the sportsmen. The real objection to such afforesting seems rather to be to its selfish character than to the withdrawal of a small quantity of land from cultivation. A return to the House of Commons dated 4th August 1891 gives certain "particulars of all deer forests and lands exclusively devoted to sport in Scotland." From this we learn that the total amount of such lands was in 1883 no less than 2,292,153 acres, and that 274,980 acres have been afforested since, the recent additions being in the counties of Argyll, Inverness, Ross and Cromarty, and Sutherland. The number of persons displaced is not given, but there are various indications that at any rate the greater part of the land devoted to sport can be of but slight agricultural value, thus: (1) Two-thirds of the estates comprised land having an altitude exceeding 2500 feet above the sea, while in only four estates was the highest land under 1000 feet. (2) In about half the estates the rent before and after afforestation is given; in the very great majority of cases the sporting rent is greater than the old rents, often several times as great, in only three cases is the new rent 25 per cent below the old. (3) The rent before afforestation averaged in more than one-fourth of the acreage for which the facts are available from nil to under 24d. an acre; in nearly half the acreage between 3d. and 8d., and in less than one-fourth between 9d. and 1s. 8d., the last being the highest rent recorded. Land commanding such average rents could sustain but a trifling pastoral or agricultural population. (12) The repeal of the corn laws, by bringing down the artificial price of wheat, caused the tillage of land ill adapted for the growth of cereals to be no longer profitable; hence some lands either went out of cultivation altogether or were devoted to pasturage, in either case there was less employment for labour on the farms affected. (13) The application of machinery to agriculture enables the same amount of land to be cultivated by the labour of a smaller number of The cause has operated widely in different parts of the world. men. (14) The centralisation of manufactures, due to the adoption of the factory system, has caused the decay of village industries such as hand-loom weaving, and has lessened the importance of the village craftsmen. (15) The direct attraction of large towns, not merely as offering higher wages to labour, but as affording more interests, more amusements, in short, more "life," is a potent factor in promoting depopulation in rural districts. (16) Improved education and a cheap press make men more ambitious and more restless, while by familiarising them with new ideas they make them less fearful of change. Moreover in rural districts compulsory education tends to prevent children from being early apprenticed to the soil, and learning the manifold duties connected with agricultural labour. (17) The rise in the standard of living is a very potent and widespread cause of migration, and hence of rural depopulation. Men are no |