Page:Bills of Mortality.pdf/13

 It must be noticed that the record is of christenings, not births; hence the ﬁgures do not include the births of Quakers, Dissenters, Jews, Roman Catholics, etc. Even those who were "half-christened"—i.e., without sponsors—were not included, and Graunt mentions that many persons failed to notify a birth, chiefly for the reason that a small fee had to be paid.

Captain Graunt was well aware of the inaccuracy of the Bills, but did not consider that his observations were vitiated thereby. He says, for instance: "In cae a man of eventy-ﬁve years old died of cough (of which, had he been free, he might poibly have lived to ninety) I eteem it little errour (as to many of our purpoes) if this Peron be in the Table of Caualties, reckoned among the Aged, and not placed under the Title of Coughs." And again, "if one died uddenly, the matter is not great whether it be reported in the Bills, Suddenly, Apoplexy, or Planet-trucken, etc." He ascordingly made a thorough analysis of the Bills which were at his disposal, and many of his deductions are in agreement with modern knowledge. He estimates the population within the area of the Bills to be 384,000, among whom are 24,000 "teeming" women. He ﬁnds an excess of births of males over females in the proportion of fourteen to thirteen. lie notes the higher moxtality of males in the somewhat unhappily-chosen words "Physicians have two Women Patients to one Man 3 and yet more Men die than Women." He observes that after a visitation of the plague the population of the city is always restored within two years; that 7 per cent. die of age; that abortives and stillborn are to those that are christened as one to twenty; that a disposition in the air towards the plague doth also dispose women to abortions; that every wedding one with another produces four children; that in the country but about one of fifty dies yearly, but in London one of thirty over and above the plague; that London is not so healthful now as heretofore, which may be due to the burning of sea-coal; and that the unhealthy season is Autumn. He deplores the seemingly small mortality from "French pox" (syphilis) in view of the great frequency of the disease, as he fears that the publication of such figures is likely to encourage immorality, and "foramuch as it is not good to let the World be lulled into a ecurity and belief of