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city. Perhaps the vaft number of new buildings, 
within the liberties of Weftminfter, may have in part 
caufed this diminution. And as from the year 1718, 
within the city, the chriftenings have been fo re- 
markably decreafing, that they are now but three- 
fifths of what they were at that time, and the bu- 
rials are likewife diminifhed above one-fourth in the 
lafi: five years ; this feems to fhew that the inhabi- 
tants within the city walls muft be near one- fourth 
fewer, than they were in the year 1718. 
Now, in order to calculate the number of inhabi- 
tants, it will be necefiary to obferve, that in a year 
in London there generally dies one perfon in thirty. 
This Sir William Petty has long ago obferved , and 
I have found it to be near the truth, upon confulting 
my parifh regifter. For in the parifh of Baflifhaw, 
London, there are not above 800 people, as appears 
from an account that I had lately given me : And 
the burials for the lafi ten years in the whole amount 
to 262 ; which at a medium gives 26 for one year, 
which is the thirtieth part of 800 nearly. In fome 
parifhes in London there die more than in this pro- 
portion, as in St. Giles’s Cripplegate; and in others 
in the out-parts of the town there die fewer ; but 
I believe, in general it will hold true, in and about 
the city. In the town of Breflaw in Germany, from 
which Dr. Halley formed his famous table for the 
probabilities of life, there die about two in fixty-nine, 
that is lefs than one in thirty-four j as is plain from 
an eafy computation. But there certainly die more 
than in that proportion, within the London bills ; for 
it appears, that one-third at lead: of the children die 
under two years of age; w r hereas at Breflaw there die 
y Id under 
