The form and contents of the bills of mortality have varied greatly since their beginning. In 1532 and 1535 the weekly bills gave the total number of burials and the number of plague burials by parishes, adding a summation of parishes clear and parishes infected. As early as 1578, if not before, the bills gave also the number of christenings[1]. In 1603, if not earlier, the figures of the weekly bills are summed up in December, by a "general or yearly bill[2] ." According to Graunt[3], the yearly bill did not particularize the several parishes until the year 1625, and his assertion is implicitly confirmed by Bell, who thus excuses himself from describing the form of bills: "I think I need not trouble myself herein, since that worthy and ingenious gentleman, Captain John Graunt, in his Book of Natural and Political Observations on the Bills of Mortality, hath already so well described them." In the absence of definite evidence to the contrary it may be assumed, therefore, that Graunt is right and that the yearly bills did not enumerate the several parishes until much later than the weekly bills.
The gradual extension of the bills to include territory not originally comprised within their limits, has been already traced. It remains to describe their enlargement by the addition of matter new to them. The first additional matter of importance was the specification of those casualties and diseases, other than the plague, which resulted in death. According to Graunt the causes of non-plague burials were ascertained and entered in the Hallbooks "in the very first year[4]." Bell likewise says that the parishes within the walls, "ever since the year 1604, brought to the Company of Parish Clerks Hall, not only the number of all the christenings and burials, but also an accompt of all the diseases and casualties, although no such accompt was published to the world until the Year 1629." The correctness of Bell's assertion turns upon the interpretation of the word "published," for it is certain that the weekly bills of 5—12 November, 1607, and 10—17 August, 1609, were endorsed in MS. with various causes of death[5]. I have found,
- ↑ Creighton, i. 341, citing the MS. at Hatfield House.
- ↑ Maitland says he saw a general bill for 1563 in the library of Sir Hans Sloane. Hist. of London, ii. 736. Sloane's library has passed to the British Museum, but the general bill for 1563 appears not to be there.
- ↑ P. 337.
- ↑ P. 346.
- ↑ It seems probable that the causes of death other than the plague were made public before 1629. Thus Dr Mead, writing to Sutteville, gives the weekly
