this Table ranketh them according to the plurality of the said four particulars wherein each excelleth the other.
5. The London-Observations reckon eight heads in each Family[1]; according to which estimation, there are 32000 Souls[2] in the 4000 Families of Dublin; which is but half of what most Men imagine; of which but about one sixth part are able to bear Arms, besides the Royal Regiment.
6. Without the knowledge of the true number of People, as a Principle, the whole scope and use of the keeping Bills of Births and Burials is impaired; wherefore by laborious Conjectures and Calculations to deduce the number of People from the Births and Burials, may be Ingenious, but very preposterous.
7. If the number of Families in Dublin be about 4000, then Ten Men, in one week (at the Charge of about Five pound, Surveying Eight Families in an hour) may directly, and without Algebra, make an Accompt of the whole People, expressing their several Ages, Sex, Marriages, Title, Trade, Religion, &c. and those who survey the Hearths, or the Constables or Parish Clarks, (may, if required) do the same ex Officio, and without o-|8|ther Charge, by the Command of the Chief Governor, the Diocesan, or the Mayor[3].
8. The Bills of London have since their beginning, admitted several Alterations and Improvements; and eight or ten pound per annum surcharge, would make the Bills of Dublin to exceed all others, and become an excellent Instrument of Government. To which purpose the Forms for
- ↑ Graunt, p. 385.
- ↑ Graunt had estimated 30,000 in 1662, see p. 399.
- ↑ How entirely Petty's dispute about the Down Survey occupied his attention in 1659 is evident from his ignorance of the census which was taken in Dublin and elsewhere in that year. It gave the number of all the people in eleven parishes (Christ Church and Nicholas without omitted) at 8780. Gilbert, Calendar, iv. 571, also p. xiii. Mr Hardinge shews reason for believing that Petty had copies of the returns of that census for nearly the whole of Ireland. If he had, it is not likely that he secured them until after the writing of the Dublin Observations, as neither the Observations nor the Polit. Anat. mentions the census of 1659. See Hardinge, The earliest known MS. Census Returns of the People of Ireland, in Trans. R. I. Acad., vol. xxiv. antiquities, pp. 317—328.
