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ILLUSTRATIONS OF 
inclined to make, the gradual decrease in the number 
of burials must be very great. We may fairly^ 
therefore, conclude that Worcester, though year by 
year increasing in population, has become more 
favourable to the prolongation of human life. To 
whatever cause this fact is to be attributed, whether 
to the preventive check acting more powerfully, and 
retarding those early marriages, by which a progeny 
was produced only to die, or whether to the improved 
mode of living, increased habitations, cleanliness, or 
to any other other cause, I leave others to deter- 
mine ; the fact is such, and it proves that this city, 
instead of being unhealthy, as some suppose, exhibits 
bills of mortality, in which the average number of 
deaths is smaller than in most other cities of the same 
population. That the preventive check has operated 
in no small degree, will be seen from the following 
table, exhibiting the number of marriages as com- 
pared with the whole population^ during three differ- 
ent periods. 
PROPORTION OF MARRIAGES TO THE WHOLE POPULATION. 
1801, as 1 to 60.-1811, as 1 to 63.— 1821, as 1 to 70. 
It cannot be doubted, that the number of burials 
must have been much influenced by this gradually 
decreasing number of marriages ; but still other 
causes must have concurred, to produce so great a 
decrease in the mortality.^ I form this opinion from 
several causes tending at the same time to increase 
* I of course mean the ratio which the number of burials bears to the whole 
population, in the distinct periods of which we have treated. 
