Bills agree, that each Wedding produces four Children, which is likewise confirmed from the Bills of Amsterdam. Secondly, they all agree that there be more Males born than Females, |104| but in different proportions, for at Cranbrook there be 20 Males for 19 Females, in Hantshire, 16 for 15, in London 14 for 13, and at Tiverton, 12 for 11. Thirdly, I have inserted the Bills themselves, to the end that whoever pleases may examin, by all three together, the Observations I raised from the Hantshire Bill alone; conceiving it will be more pleasure and satisfaction to do it themselves, than to receive it from another hand. Only I shall add, as a new Observation from them all, that in the years 1648 and 1649, being the time when the people of England did most resent the horrid Parricide of his late Sacred Majesty, that there were but nine weddings in that year in the same places, when there were ordinarily between 30 and 40 per Annum; and but 16, when there were ordinarily at other times between 50 and 60. And it may be also observed that something of this black murder appeared in the years 1643 and 1644, when the Civil war was at the highest, but the contrary in the years 1654, 1655, &c. to prevent the new way of Marriage then imposed upon the people[1].
I have also supplied the Tables from the three general Bills for the years 1662, 1663, and 1664, which you will find to justifie |105| the former Observations. But most eminently that which I take to be of most concernment, namely, of the difference between the numbers of Males and Females.
In the former Observations I did endeavour to deduce the number of the Inhabitants about the City of London, from the Bills of Mortality, concluding them to be about 460000[2], and did likewise set forth by what steps the people of the said City have increased from two to five since the year 1600[3].
- ↑ Cromwell's act requiring civil marriage was passed 24 August, 1653, and went into legal effect September 29 of the same year. If, therefore, a desire to "prevent the new way of Marriage" caused an increased number of weddings in 1654, 1655, &c., the actual enforcement of the act must have been somewhat lax.
- ↑ In the Index, p. 331, note.
- ↑ See pp. 378—380.
