Comparative Account : Population of Great Britairi. 367 



of the plague; in 1592 above 15,000; and in 1603 more than 36,000. 

 This frequent recurrence caused the establishment of notices, called 

 Weekly Bills of Mortality, which were kept and published by the pa- 

 rish clerks, as a warning to the Court and to others to leave London, 

 whenever the plague became more fatal than usual. In the year 162.'), 

 above 35,000 persons died of the plague ; in the year 1636 above 

 10,000 ; and 68,596 persons died in the last great plague of 1665. 

 The conflagration which destroyed the whole city occurred in the 

 year 1666, after which the plague languished, and finally disappeared 

 from the Bills of Mortality in 1679. The somewhat obsolete names 

 of diseases in these Bills have," says Mr. Rickman, " injured their 

 reputation ;" but we are disposed to censure them further. The Lon- 

 don Bills of Mortality have too long remained stationary, too long 

 retained the barbarous language and forms in which they were origi- 

 nally delivered. Ought this to be so ? They are perpetually referred 

 to by able writers, notwithstanding it is known that much of the evi- 

 dence they contain is derived from the testimony of old women. 

 Major Graunt, above a century ago, urged with the greatest truth, 

 that " the old women searchers, after the mist of a cup of ale, and the 

 bribe of a two-groat fee, reported those to die of consumption, who 

 really died of diseases of a very different kind." Mr. Rickman men- 

 tions that the Bills of Mortality are discontinued in some of the larger 

 parishes. VV^e are sorry for this. We would not have them aban- 

 doned, but improved, and brought into perfect keeping with the ge- 

 neral spirit of the age. We are unquestionably behind most other 

 civilized nations in the subject of registers. Sweden, for example, 

 has long possessed a well-digested system of medical statistics; but 

 "England," as Sir Walter Scott once eloquently observed, "which 

 has commanded arts, sciences and manufactures to arise, as the rod 

 of the prophet produced waters in the desert," — has singularly neg- 

 lected the important subject of medical statistics. We forbear, how- 

 ever, dilating on this at present, it being our intention to treat of it with 

 more fullness in our review of Hawkins's Medical Statistics, in a future 

 Number. \A'ithin the limits of what is called the Bills of Mortality, 

 the population was 326,000, in the beginning of the last century, but 

 it now amounts to 760,000. 



A few parishes not within the Bills of Mortality, but adjoining the 

 metropolis, form the last division. In the early part of the past cen- 

 tury, these were but thinly peopled, containing only 9,150 persons, 

 occupying a feiv scattered hamlets, und living in a manner compara- 

 tively rural. At the present moment these same parishes are filled 

 with an active and intelligent community amounting to 293,560 souls. 



These are the six great parts into wiiich Mr. Rickman has divided 

 our metropolis. Its whole |)opulation was 674,000 at the commence- 

 ment of tiie last century, but in 1831 it amounted to upwards of 

 l,50l!, 000, including the usual allowance for seamen and strangers. 

 This gives an increase of 222 per cent., while the population of the 



or that the alleged mortality i'-. enoriiioiisly exaggerated, although that in 

 Loiulon i.s supported by circimistantial evidence, which aj)pcars to be con- 

 clusive. 



