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The Dublin Bill.
399

of Weekly Burials being about 20, and those of London about 300, as also the Number of People reckoned to be within the Limits of the Bills of Mortality at London to be 460000; it will follow, that the Number of Inhabitants of Dublin be about 30000, viz. about one fifteenth part of those in and about London, which agrees with that Number which I have heard the Books of Poll-Money, raised but little before the time of this Bill, have exhibited as the Number of Inhabitants of that City: So as although I do not think one single Weekly Bill is sufficient to ground such a Conclusion upon, yet I think that several yearly Bills are the best of the easie ways from which to collect the Number of the People.

Secondly, Although I take it for granted, that in Dublin there be more Born than Buried, because the same hath appeared to be so in London by the Bills of Mortality before the year 1641, when the Civil Wars began, and much more eminently in Amsterdam, as shall be hereafter shewn; yet there are but 14 set down as Christned; which shews, that |103| the defect there is much the same as at London, whether the cause thereof be negligence in the Register, on non-conformity to Publick Order, or both, I leave to the curious. I believe the cause is also the same, forasmuch as I heard it to be a Maxim at Dublin, to follow, if not forerun, all that is, or as they understand will be, practised in London; and that in all particulars incident to humane affairs.

I have here inserted two other Country-Bills, the one of Cranbrook[1] in Kent, the other of Tiverton[2] in Devonshire, which with that of Hantshire[3], lying about the midway between them, give us a view of the most Easterly, Southerly, and Westerly parts of England: I have endeavoured to procure the like account from Northumberland, Cheshire, Norfolk, and Nottinghamshire; Thereby to have a view of seven Counties most differently situated, from whence I am sorry to observe that my Southern friends have been hitherto more curious and diligent than those of the North. The full observation from these Bills is, that all these three Country

  1. See pp. 419—421.
  2. See pp. 416—418.
  3. See pp. 412—415.