'226 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1751. 



eluded in a quarter of an hour, than can be performed in a quarter of a year, 

 by any method which the others have demonstrated. Whence it may be pre- 

 sumed, that the hypothesis will continue to be used, till better methods are 

 substituted instead of those derived from it. 



When the bills of mortality digested into a proper form, shall have been kept 

 a convenient time in every city or considerable town, and also in every hundred, 

 or other proper division of the country ; then, and not till then, the hypothesis 

 may be tried by the facts that will appear from the bills, and be confirmed or re- 

 jected accordingly. Indeed Mr. D. is almost persuaded, from what has been 

 above remarked, that the hypothesis will, in general, appear to be the nearer the 

 truth, the more those bills of mortality shall be in number, and the correcter 

 they are kept. He proceeds therefore to mention those alterations which he 

 thinks may be of advantage, in the form of the bills of mortality, in every part 

 of these kingdoms, over and above those mentioned by Mr. Morris, in the 

 before-quoted pamphlet. 



J . That there be a distinction made on the face of the bills of mortality, 

 between the persons who were born in the place where such bills were kept, and 

 those that were not. This will be effected with a very little trouble, if the 

 searchers of each parish be instructed to ask the question of the friends of the 

 deceased, and annex the answer to their report. This precaution will facilitate 

 many of the good purposes proposed by Mr. Morris ;' and particularly with re- 

 gard to fixing the values of lives, it will enable the persons who shall apply the 

 bills to calculation, to draw their conclusions only from the lives that were both 

 begun, and ended, in or near the same place ; the want of the possibility of 

 doing which is the principal objection to the London bills, as hitherto kept ; 2, 

 that there be a distinction, with regard both to age and disease, made on the 

 face of the bills, between the sexes ; and that one case be added to the list of 

 diseases ; viz. complaints peculiarly incident to the female sex. This will not 

 only solve the difficulty above started, but also answer many purposes in political 

 arithmetic, as well as to the sagacious physician ; 3, that a further division be 

 made in time ; for whereas Mr. Morris's scheme exhibits no age between 40 and 

 50, Mr. D. proposes, that the numbers dying between 40 and 45, and between 

 45 and 50, should be particularized in the bills ; the design of this being to fix 

 the periods that are fatal to the fair sex, with more certainty. 



These alterations, together with those proposed by Mr. Morris, being made, 

 the yearly bill of mortality for London, will appear as in a specimen which 

 Mr. D. annexed, and according to which form nearly such tables are often 

 kept. 



