It was seen that no ordinary care and research had been bestowed on his calculations. Chester, Warrington, and Shrewsbury had contributed the English portion of the statistics. From abroad, Sweden and Finland had sent the mean numbers of the living with the annual deaths for twenty-one successive years, together with a complete set of tables of the values of the annuities on single lives, both with and without the distinction of sexes, which completed the interest of a book that is yet quoted with respect. If the book itself were thus important, the character of the writer was sufficiently established to secure a favourable reception to his doctrines. He had already written on the subject, and nothing more completely evinces the general ignorance than that his two previous papers should have been devoted to topics which are now self-evident; one of them being to demonstrate that marshy ground was insalubrious; and another, to prove that the value of life in large close towns, was less than in the wide, invigorating country. From Dr. Price the world first heard that half of the children who were born in London, died under three years of age; that in Vienna and Stockholm, half died under two; in Manchester, under five; and in Northampton, under ten. “London,” said the worthy Unitarian, “is a gulf which swallows up an increase equal to near three-fourths of that of Sweden.” The results of the work were as good as the work itself. The papers of the day quoted its opinions; the subscribers to the annuity societies took the alarm, discontinued their subscriptions, or demanded an inquiry. The rage for establishing new annuity companies was as suddenly stopped by Dr. Price, as in 1720 the old companies were stopped by the arm of the law. A partial reformation was attempted in some, the managers of others suddenly disappeared, while a still greater number finding it impossible to continue, dissolved their society and left the unhappy annuitants to regret their carelessness and digest their loss. Of course, the author did not escape abuse, and many an anathema was launched at the head of the doctor, and many an epigram pointed at him by those “who live by others’ losses.”