Show THE LIVING AND THE DEAD A seeker after information asks a extemporary a question estion which la is inter listing eing from oue point paint 0 of view ani absurd looked at another way it is as to tue preponderance iu in number ot of the human beings nw alive over all those who have preceded them or otherwise while it is under understood that the earth has now a greater creater population than it ever hal haj before the number being estimated variously at from to a hundred millions or more in excess of that figure it should be kept in mind that a generation is a very brief span and that the population of the globe must undergo al complete change every hundred years at the most the increase this century is shown to have been very rapid one authority in 1804 put the number of people alive ut at since which time it has about doubek daub eu it 11 all estimates are approximately correct and it is further calculated that three times as ai many have been born and died since that chat date even the tha deaths deathe inthe in the present century it is believed exceed the number ut of persons living As we go back in history says the authority spoken of we find a smaller population but with smaller and smaller data to go on the only fair basis we have tor lor an estimate at the beginning of the christian era is the population of the roman empire this included the m oat civilized races of mankind and was tiie te most moot extensive and powerful nation that the world had ever seen yet the roman empire from the best befit obtainable data that has come down to us lid did not at the death of augustus 14 B C exceed people india and china were the only populous bartoi of the earth beyond its limits and it is not probable that the total population of the world ran above at that date yet if we illow allow forty years as the average of life at that era this population if station ary would take only years yearn to show sva as many deaths as ibers are now living jiving people 21 ane country of which we have the I 1 most ancient general is ejup with a present population of nearly 91 ay 1 it was a civilized nation years ago and the population in bulk has baa remained tolerably steady during the whole of the intervening time but it if it averaged say an aej J the duration of life be put at forty years during such time and the 2000 years previous thereto there towe we have a total of dead or of more than half the population of the earth for that littie nation alone it to is mor than likely that the array of those who have gone one be ore surpasses Aes that of the living in a proportion almost impossible to estimate |