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[ 361 ] 



LXIII. Reviews, and Notices respecting New Books. 



Comparative Account : Population of Great Britain. Ordered by the 

 House of Commons to be printed, I9th October, 1831. 



[Concluded, from p. 220.] 



O country but Great Britain exhibits so much that is truly inter- 

 esting in all that regards calculations relating to the duration of 

 human life. On the right hand and on the left, institutions are reared 

 to protect the orphan and the widow. Much light remains, however, 

 to be thrown on this most interesting and deeply important subject. 

 The parish registers have, in the census of 1831, been made subser- 

 vient to this important end. The parish registers of England form, 

 indeed, in the aggregate a vast national record ; and, we may add, 

 have hitherto been singularly neglected. The village clerk, when he 

 records the baptism of a child, or performs the melancholy office of 

 registering the dead, is unconsciously performing a duty acceptable 

 to the philosopher, and silently creating materials to mitigate the 

 sorrowii of life. The earliest of these records date from the establish- 

 ment — the venerable establishment — of ihe Church of England, in- 

 junctions to that effect having been issued by Cromwell (Henry's 

 vicegerent for ecclesiastical jurisdiction) in 1538. These were re- 

 peated in the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, who also appointed 

 a protestation to be made by the clergy, in which among other things 

 they promised to keep parish register books in a proper manner. In 

 1812, however, a new Parish Register Act was passed, and which 

 during eighteen complete years has now produced the ages of four 

 millions of the deceased. To extract from the entries in the parish 

 registers this vast account, was committed to the charge of the clergy, 

 and the work was in most cases performed by them personally. To 

 arrange the resulting lists into aggregates for each year, and for every 

 age, since 1812, will be a work of vast labour ; but Mr. Rickman's 

 unceasing industry and iulmirable arrangements will do this. He will 

 be stimulated in his laborious inquiry by the recollection, that the 

 materials on which he is employed are by far the most perfect of any 

 hitherto submitted to investigation. The problem of the increased 

 duration of life, which singularly enough has attracted more notice 

 abroad than at home, will thus have n^w light thrown upon it. We 

 wait impatiently for this part of Mr. Rickman's labours; and if we are 

 correctly informed, he has already arrived at some singularly inter- 

 esting results. It will form, without doubt, the most splendid con- 

 tribution that has yet been made to the law of mortality. 



The following table contains an account of the population of En- 

 gland.Wales, and Scotland, at each of the four periods of enumeration. 

 The total amount for 18fil is 16,;j37,3!i8. The population increased 

 from ISll to 1821 at the rate of \7i per cent, but from 1821 to 

 1H3I, only l.'i^ |)er cent. 



Third Scries. \'o\. 1 . No. 5. Nov. 1832. 3 A 



