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The labour of each child, before it can leave their house, is

computed to be worth a hundred pounds clear gain to them. A young

widow with four or five young children, who, among the middling

or inferior ranks of people in Europe, would have so little

chance for a second husband, is there frequently courted as a

sort of fortune. The value of children is the greatest of all

encouragements to marriage. We cannot, therefore, wonder that the

people in North America should generally marry very young.

Notwithstanding the great increase occasioned by such early

marriages, there is a continual complaint of the scarcity of

hands in North America. The demand for labourers, the funds

destined for maintaining them increase, it seems, still faster

than they can find labourers to employ.