362 Dr. Father gill oh Longevity. 
hundredth and fixth year, in that fordid, unfriendly 
fituation.* The plain diet, and invigorating 
employments of a country life, are acknowledged, 
on all hands, to be highly conducive to health 
and longevity, while the luxury and refinements 
of large cities are allowed to be equally deftruc- 
tive to the human fpecies : and this confideration 
alone, perhaps, more than counterbalances all 
the boafted privileges, of fuperior elegance and 
civilization, refulting from a city life. 
From country villages, and not from crouded 
cities, have the preceding inftances of longevity 
been chiefly fupplied. Accordingly it appears, 
from the London bills of Mortality, during a 
period of thirty years, viz. from the'year 3728 
to 1758, the fum of the deaths amounted to 
750,322, and that, in all this prodigious 
number, only two hundred and forty two 
perfons furvived the hundredth year of their age! 
This overgrown metropolis is computed, by my 
learned friend Dr. Price , to contain a ninth part 
of the inhabitants of England, and to confume 
annually, feven thoufand perfons, who remove 
into it from the country every year, without 
increafing it. He moreover obferves, that the 
number of inhabitants, in England and Wales, 
has diminiChed about one fourth part fince 
fhe revolution, and fo rapidly of late, that, 
id 
? Lynche's Guide to Health, C. III. 
