[ 4i« ] 



from the cellar to the garret, has each a 

 family ; and in all thele cafes it will be 

 found, that the act ual refident number will 

 be much higher than fix, or probably eight, 

 without reckoning Tons or daughters, that 

 are abfent in fervice. Then rife to the next 

 ranks, farmers, with houfes full of children 

 and fervants ; and in towns, fmall {hops, 

 with their one or two maids and a lad ; un- 

 til, riling, you come from ten to forty, fifty, 

 and an hundred in an houfe. 



It is aflonifhing that our political arith- 

 meticians mould have been fo blind as to 

 imagine, that houfe was merely a fynony- 

 mous word for marriage. The latter is a 

 calculation that cannot poflibly give the 

 truth ; but the number of houfes is certainly 

 a good rule to judge by. However, we 

 ihould not be too ready to fuppofe the num- 

 ber of fouls per houfe, at all times the 

 fame. Houfes are much enlarged within 

 fifty years ; and among the poor, more fa- 

 milies may be reckoned to a certain num- 

 ber of houfes at prefent, than formerly. 

 The exad: number of houfes in 1758, was 

 961,578 ; but if we coniider the vafl pro- 

 greis which every art and trade has made, 

 from the inundation of wealth after the 

 war, and which we fee in the increafe of 

 towns and villages, within the lad ten years, 

 there can be little doubt of the number now 



amounting 



