i 
ber of lioufes is too precarious ; and, befides, fix to a 
houfe is, probably too large an allowance. Many 
families now have two hoiifes to live in. The ma- 
giflrates of Norwich, in 1752, took an exadt account 
of both the number of houfes and individuals in that 
city. 'I' The number of houfes was 7,139, and of 
If this is true, Dr. Brakenridge has alfo over-rated the 
number of people in England. The number of houfes rated to 
the window tax he had, he fays, been certainly informed was 
690.000. Xhe number of cottages not rated was not, he adds, 
accurately known; but from the accounts given in it appeared, 
that they could not amount to above 200,000 ; and, allowing 
6 to a houfe, this would make the number of people in England 
5.340.000. But if 5 to a houfe fhould be a jufter allowance, 
the number will be 4,450,000. The number of people in Scot- 
land he reckons 1,500,000, and in Ireland i,ooo,oco. — See a 
Letter to George Lewis Scott, Efq; Phil. Tranfadf. vol. XLIX. 
p. 877. 1756. 
f Vid. Gentleman’s Magazine for I 75 ^» 
Comparative hijiory of the increafe of mankind, p. 38. In page 58 
of this laft work the author fays, that, in order to be fully fa- 
tisfied about the number of perfons to be allowed to a family, 
he procured the true number of families and individuals in 14 
market towns, fome of them confiderable for trade and popu- 
Joufnefs ; and that in them were 20,371 families, and 97,611 
individuals, or but little more than 4I: to a family. He adds, 
that, in order to find the difference in this refpedl: between 
towns of trade and country parifhes, he procured from divers 
parts of the kingdom the exaft number of families and indivi~ 
duals in 65 country parifhes. The number of families was 
17,208 ; individuals 76,284 ; or not quite 4I to a family.— -In 
the place I have juft referred to, in the Gentleman’s Magazine, 
there is an account of the number of houfes and inhabitants in Ox- 
ford exclufiveof the colleges, and in Wolverhampton, Coventry, 
and Birmingham, for 1750. The number of perfons to a houfe 
was, by this account, 4± in the two former towns, and 51. 
in the two latter. It feems, therefore, to appear that 5 perfons ^ 
to a houfe is an allowance large enough for London, and too large 
for England in general. 
O • 1 • • 
indivi" 
