[ 359 ] 
which dries up generally in Augufi:, and leaves a stag- 
nated water, and {linking mud, at a critical feafon of 
the year, which bring on a putrid fever, and make 
our place fometimes very fickly. In the year 17 yi 
we buried 17, and in 1756. 11: and therefore we 
may prefume, that in the healthiefi: parts of the na- 
tion, the proportion is ftill greater, perhaps not one 
in 60. In order to clear up this, it were to be wifhed, 
that the adtual number of the people was known, 
where-ever the bills of mortality are exhibited. All 
reafoning without this preliminary is really not much 
better than groping in the dark. 
A fourth thing obfervable from my numbers is, 
that the quantity of people allotted to a houfe is too 
big in all former calculations : for if we divide 425, 
the number of people, by 90, the number of houfes, 
it gives but 4.7a, which is not quite 4 to a houfe ; 
and therefore 5 to a houfe, I believe, is as much as 
ought to be allowed, taking the nation all together. 
Now if the number of houfes, taken in Queen Anne’s 
time, be any thing near the right, with one fourth 
more allowed for cottages, according to Dr. Bracken- 
ridge’s computation, we (hall make the people in 
England, allowing 5 to a houfe, to be only 4,5’5'6,f 5 o. 
which appears, at firft fight, to be too fmall a number. 
However, of Shefford I would beg leave to obferve, 
(and it is far from being the poore'l of villages) that 
more than two thirds of al the houfes are downright 
cottages, and mud be excluded, one as much as an- 
other, from any pronofed afifeflinent. Upon this 
foundation we mull grant, that at leaf! half the 
houfes in England, take towns and all together, mud 
be cottages, and plead an exemption from taxation 
all 
