Rhetoric and Numerical Sequence
"It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms."
[Omitted numbers = 1, 2 (i.e., number of infants needed to maintain steady population)]
3 (+1=) 4 (+2=) 6 (+3=) 9 (+4=) 13 (+5=) 18 (+6=) 24 etc.