Kiddy Lit. RE: Wizard Demographics

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 25356

Tammy Z (Sister of Amy Z?) wrote:

> I tend to use literature for writing models and to see
> sentences begun with "And" and "But" is sickening.

I protest! I start sentences with "And" and "But" deliberately on 
purpose -- and I use redundancies like 'deliberately on purpose' to 
indicate that my use of AND to begin a sentence resulted from long 
DELIBERATION over the best way to make words serve my PURPOSE of 
conveying a particular meaning, including the associated emotions. 
In general, I feel about grammar snobs the way that Malfoys feel 
about poor but obese Mudbloods.

Frantyck Werewoof wrote:

> I was wondering whether anyone anywhere has done a bit of 
> calculation wrt wizard demographics

I often brood obsessively over how big the wizarding population of 
the island of Britain (and associated isles) must be to be able to 
have all the economy that we have seen: all the shops of Hogsmeade 
and Diagon Alley, the broomstick manufacturors and the professional 
Quidditch teams, etc.  In my opinion, the wizarding population MUST 
be AT LEAST 15,000 to have all that division of labor, and 20 to 
25,000 seems more plausible. 

If the usual lifespan of wizards is 150 years (Dumbledore's current 
age) then 15,000 divided by 150 is 100 kids born each year time seven 
years at Hogwarts would be a student body of 700. As I believe that 
Dumbledore's unusually powerful magic has made him live unusually 
long even for a wizard, I think 100 is a more likely AVERAGE lifespan 
which would give a student body of 1000, which is the number I had 
decided on before JKR stated it. 

But I consider the island of Britain (and associated isles) to be 
quite separate from the island of Ireland (and associated isles), 
with Ireland having its own Ministry of Magic, own wizarding 
school(s), and so on. The wizard folk cling to old-fashioned ways
like (looking like) steam engines and sailing ships and an economy of 
small independent sole proprietors and artisans, why would they 
change perfectly good wizarding national borders just because of 
Muggle political changes? It makes sense to me that their borders 
would be based either on physical geography (separate islands = 
separate island nations) or VERY OLD history.