Such men made large profits. They knew nothing and they cared nothing for the chances of life. Their charges covered all risks. And so little was known of the number of the people, that a few desultory facts concerning this and a previous period, being gathered from various sources, may not be unacceptable or uninstructive. Up to this time, and long after, the population of London and of England was a riddle. The utmost exaggeration prevailed in all the accounts which we possess concerning it. Fitzstephen writes of London being peopled with a multitude of inhabitants; and adds, that, in the fatal wars under King Stephen, 80,000 men were mustered. Allowing for the martial fury of the time, this would give a population of 400,000 in the twelfth century dwelling in London. Everything points to the fact that the metropolis augmented more than the authorities thought good. The progressive increase of London was a continual source of alarm. In 1581 a proclamation was issued, forbidding any new buildings. Elizabeth caused a statute to be passed to the same effect, because “such multitudes could hardly be governed, by ordinary justice, to serve God and obey her Majesty;” and because “such great multitudes of people in small rooms, being heaped up together, and in a sort smothered, with many families of children and servants, in one tenement, it must needs follow, if any plague or any universal sickness come among them, it would presently spread through the whole city.” These proclamations were continued. James said, so many people “cumbering the city were a general nuisance;” adding, that the single women who came from the country marred their reputations, and that the married lost them. Still the people flocked, in spite of proclamations, and in opposition to statutes. Old country establishments crowded by the score to “upstart London,” “pinching many a belly to paint a few backs, and burying all the treasures of the kingdom in a few citizens’ coffers.” At last some effect was produced, not however by the proclamation, but by fining one Mr. Palmer a thousand pounds. Still, if we may judge by what Howel writes, the city of London continued to increase “For the number of human souls breathing in city and suburbs, London may compare with any in Europe in point of populousness.” This he estimates, taking “within that compass where the point of the Lord Mayor’s sword reacheth,” at a million and a half of souls. Foreigners could scarcely understand the huge concourse which thronged London, and which for a long time baffled our earlier political economists, who wondered how it was that the annual deaths outbalanced the annual births. Our satirists were very hard on the new comers. Ben Jonson describes them as “country gulls,” who come up every term to learn to take tobacco and see new notions. They paid heavily for their lesson in London life; and many an annuity was wrung out of the fat land of the country gentleman from his visit to the metropolis.