Page:PettyWilliam1899EconomicWritingsVol2.djvu/85

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392
Graunt's Observations.

Which shews, that the opener and freer Airs are most subject both to the good and bad Impressions, and that the Fumes, Steams and Stenches of London do so medicate and impregnate the Air about it, that it becomes capable of little more, as if the said Fumes rising out of London met with, opposed and justled backwards the Influences falling from above, or resisted the Incursion of the Country-Airs.

10. In the last Paragraph we said, that the Burials in the Country were sometime quintuple to one another, but of the Christenings we affirm, that within the same Decad they are seldom double, as appears by this Table, viz.[1].

greatest least
Decad number of Births
1 70 50
2 90 45
3 71 52
4 93 60
5 87 61
6 85 63
7 103 66
8 87 62
9 86 52 |93|

Now, although the disproportions of Births be not so great as that of Burials, yet these disproportions are far greater than at London: for let it be shewn in any of the London Bills, that within two years the Christenings have decreased ½ or increased double, as they did Anno 1584, when 90 were born, and Anno 1586, wherein were but 45: or to rise from 52, as Anno 1593, to 71, as in the next year 1594. Now these disproportions both in Births and Burials confirm what hath been before asserted[1], That Healthfulness and Fruitfulness go together, as they would not, were there not disproportions in both, although proportional.

11. By the Standard of Burials in this Parish I thought to have computed the number of Inhabitants in it, viz. by

  1. 1.0 1.1 See pp. 368—9, 390.