Some further
OBSERVATIONS
OF
Major John Graunt.
WHereas in the Month of December, in the Year 1672, there were Christen'd in the several Parishes of the City and Suburbs of Paris[1] 1366, and Weddings 68, and Buried 1153. yet of the Reformed Religion, in the same space of Time and Place, there were Christen'd but 27, and Buried
- ↑ The origin, or at least the publication of the Paris bills may be traced, with some degree of probability, to the influence of Graunt's Observations. The review of the Observations in the Journal des Sçavans, 2 August, 1666, begins "C'est une chose particuliere aux Anglois de faire des Billets de mortalite,"—words which seem to indicate that no similar bills were then published in Paris. The code of April 1667, provided that "estant important au public, pour la sante et pour la subsistance des habitans, d'en connoistre l'etat en tout terms et d'observer soigneusement les causes qui augmentent ou diminuent le peuple de chacun des quartiers de Paris, il sera fait, tous les seconde jours du mois, une feuille qui contiendra le nombre des baptemes, des mariages et des mortuaires du mois precedant et de chacune des paroisses en particular." Serpillon, Code civil, ou commentaire sur l'ordonnance du mois d'Avril, 1667. Paris, 1776, pp. 336—338, titre 20, articles 8—14; Recherches stat. sur la Ville de Paris, ii. pp. xiii—xiv; Levasseur, La statistique officielle en France, in Journal de la Soc. de stat. de Paris, xxvi. 225, 279, June, 1885. The close similarity of these Paris bills to the London bills lends probability to the assertion of Sir Peter Pett, that the idea was suggested to the counsellors of Louis XIV. by Graunt's Observations. Happy future State of England, (written 1680) p. 249.
