multiplying 58 by 4[1], which made the Product 232, the number of Families. Hereupon I wondred, that a Parish containing a large Market-Town, and 12 Miles compass, should have but 232 Houses; I then multiplyed 232 by 8, the Product whereof was 1856, thereby hoping to have had the number of the Inhabitants, as I had for London[2]: but when upon enquiry, I found there had been 2100 Communicants in that Parish, in the time of a Minister who forced too many into that Ordinance, and |94| that 1500 was the ordinary number of Communicants in all times; I found also, that forasmuch as there were near as many under 16 years old, as there are above[3], viz. Communicants, I concluded, that there must be about 2700 or 2800 Souls in that Parish: from whence it follows, that little more than one of 50 dies in the Country, whereas in London it seems manifest, that about one in 32 dies[4], over and above what dies of the Plague.
12. It follows therefore from hence, what I more faintly asserted in the former Chapter[5], that the Country is more healthful than the City; that is to say, although men die more regularly, and less per saltum in London, than in the Country, yet, upon the whole matter, there die fewer per rata; so as the Fumes, Steams, and Stenches above-mentioned, although they make the Air of London more equal, yet not more Healthful.
13. When I consider, That in the Country seventy are Born for fifty eight Buried, and that before the year 1600 the like happened in London, I considered, whether a City, as it becomes more populous, doth not, for that very cause, become
- ↑ Apparently on the assumption that in the country one dies out of four families each year. Graunt has calculated (p. 385) that in the city there die three out of eleven families.
- ↑ See p. 385.
- ↑ Sir Peter Pett also adopts this "currant rule of calculation" in his Happy future State of England, p. 118. Cf. Another Essay, note on "The Telling of Noses."
- ↑ This does not exactly agree with Graunt's estimate (p. 385) that 3 die in 11 families of 88 persons.
- ↑ Chap. vii.
