Ch. viii. in England. 405 



considerable degree. The small proportion of 

 annual marriages before mentioned indicates that 

 habits of prudence, extremely favourable to hap- 

 piness, prevail through a large part of the com- 

 munity, in spite of the poor-laws; and it appears 

 from the clearest evidence, that the generality of 

 our country parishes are very healthy. Dr. Price 

 quotes an account of Dr. Percival, collected from 

 the ministers of different parishes and taken from 

 positive enumerations, according to which, in some 

 villages, only a 45th, a 50th, a 60th, a 06th, and 

 even a 75th, part dies annually. In many of these 

 parishes the births are to the deaths above 2 to 1, 

 and in a single parish above 3 to 1.* These how- 

 ever are particular instances, and cannot be ap- 

 plied to the agricultural part of the country in 

 general. In some of the flat situations, and par- 

 ticularly those near marshes, the proportions are 

 found very different, and in a few the deaths ex- 

 ceed the births. In the 54 country parishes, the 

 registers of which Dr. Short collected, choosing 

 them purposely in a great variety of situations, the 

 average mortality was as high as 1 in 37. \ This 

 is certainly much above the present mortality of 

 our agricultural parishes in general. The period 



* Price's Observ. on Revcrs. Payni. vol. ii. note, p. 10. First 

 additional Essay, 4tb edit. In particular parishes, private commu- 

 nications are perhaps more to be depended upon than public re- 

 turns ; because in general those clergymen only are applied to, 

 who arc in some degree interested in the subject, and of course 

 take more pains to be accurate. 



T New Observations on Bills of Mortality, table ix. p. 133. 



