and for 1597— 1600[1]. Inasmuch as a large portion of these returns, those preserved by Stow from 14 July, 1564, to 26 July, 1566 and all the Bodleian figures, 1597-1600, cover periods almost free from infection, it may perhaps be inferred that after 1563 the weekly returns continued to be made out with considerable regularity during the rest of the century. In any event it is clear that they antedate 1592 and were not discontinued from 1595 to 1603. We might perhaps save Bell's reputation for accuracy in the matter by assuming that the sixteenth century bills were compiled by some one else than the Company of Parish Clerks. We know, indeed, that the deaths in 1535 were certified by the Lord Mayor[2], and we do not know how he ascertained the facts; but it is probable that he employed the Parish Clerks even then to collect the information, and it is almost certain that in and after 1563 the bills were made out by that company[3].
Graunt professes to give[4] the deaths from the plague and from other causes in each week of 1603 from 17 March to the end of December. Apparently he had also the figures, at least of the christenings, from December, 1602 to March, 1603[5]. In other words he claims information for a whole year of which Bell asserts that the Parish Clerks gave no account until December twenty-first. And Graunt's figures are confirmed in part, while Bell's assertion is completely refuted, by an original printed bill for the week 13—20 October, 1603, preserved in the Guildhall Library[6]. Concerning the figures for 1592, also, there is a disagreement between Bell and Graunt. Graunt gives figures of the total deaths and of the plague deaths from 17 March, 1592, to the 22nd December[7], whereas Bell believes that the 21st December of that year marks the beginning of the bills. Noting that "the Weekly and General Bills in the year 1593 did bare date from Thursday to Thursday...... and that they continued that course until the year 1629," Bell goes on to observe that "all the Papers that make mention of the Great Plague
- ↑ Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS., 824, ff. 196—199; printed pp. 433—435, post.
- ↑ Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, ix. no. 151, 279, 341, 451.
- ↑ Christie, Some Account of the Parish Clerks, 133—135. The bills of 1603, concerning which Graunt and Bell disagree, are admitted to be the Clerks' work.
- ↑ In the table at p. 426.
- ↑ See p. 366.
- ↑ In "Political Tracts, 1680, PP." There are also other reasons for believing Graunt correct, see pp. 426—428, post.
- ↑ In the table at p. 426.
