Hogwarts Upkeep - How big is the community?

[adatole]

No: HPFGUIDX 36575

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "joanne0012" <Joanne0012 at a...> wrote:
> Ah, yes. But that's where the plot thickens!  Please, let's not get 
back into the 
> debate about the number of students at Hogwarts; this board and the 
Lexicon 
> have exhausted that.  A further complication is that although 
wizards might 
> naturally have the potential for a much longer lifespan, the higher 
death rate 
> during Voldemort's reign might have diminished that 20x ratio.  But 
undoubtedly 
> it's higher than the ratio of muggle adults to muggle-school 
students.
****************
I would also argue that the nature of wizards and the chances they 
take would keep the population low. It seems that the most "suburban" 
of wizards still perform magic which appears wildly dangerous - 
flying cars without parachutes or even safety glass, flying a broom 
from which you could fall and splatter on the ground, even the 
game "exploding snap" seems that it has the chance to harm or even 
maim.

Part of this, as discussed in recent posts, is that wizards seem to 
have a natural "immunity" from normal harm. Neville falls from the 
window and bounces. In SS/PS I've always wondered that HRH jumped 
down the trap door without any regard for what was at the bottom, 
falling a looooooong way, without so much as a scratch. A huge marble 
statue smacks Ron across the head but he makes it though OK. 
Etc. "Splinching" (Apparating and leaving part of yourself behind) 
does not sound like something that a Muggle would live through to 
laugh about.

Anyway, my point is that there is a group of people who can withstand 
more physical punnishment, but they engage in activities that are 
SIGNIFICANTLY more dangerous than even their tolerances would allow. 

Therefore I think that more wizards die, per capita, by "accidents" 
and that keeps the population lower than Muggle levels also.

Leon