By this time the subject of mortuary registrations was mooted in magazines and periodicals, and many ideas may be found scattered over contemporaneous literature, which probably assisted to perfect the necrological system which we now enjoy. It may seem trite to relate that in 1773 it was recommended to keep a table of christenings, marriages, and burials in every church, chapel, and place of religious worship, to be published annually; but this was a grasp of intelligence not previously attained; and when, too, it was advised that the tables of christenings should specify the sexes, and the tables of deaths divide the males into children, bachelors, married men, and widowers, and the females into corresponding denominations, it was really no trifling advance in the objects of life assurance, although it was not thought so at the time. It was said, also, and said justly, “The establishment of a judicious and accurate register of the births and burials in every town and parish, would be attended with the most important advantages,--medical, political, and moral. By such an institution, the increase or decrease of certain diseases, the comparative healthiness of different situations, climates, and seasons, the influence of particular trades and manufactures on longevity, with many other circumstances not more interesting to physicians than beneficial to mankind, would be ascertained with tolerable precision. In the Pays de Vaud and in a country parish in Brandenburgh, 1 in 45 of the inhabitants die annually, and at Stoke Demerell, in Devonshire, 1 in 54. Whereas in Vienna and Edinburgh the yearly mortality appears to be 1 in 20; in London, 1 in 21; in Amsterdam and Rome, 1 in 22; in Northampton 1 in 26; and in the parish of Holy Cross, near Shrewsbury, 1 in 33. In the Pays de Vaud the proportion of inhabitants who attain the age of 80 is 1 in 21-1/2; in Brandenburgh, 1 in 22-1/2; in Norwich, 1 in 27; in Manchester, 1 in 30; in London, 1 in 40; and in Edinburgh, 1 in 42.” This was in 1773, and the intelligent reader will necessarily be reminded of the period when life annuities were paid for without regard to youth or age, and when a life insurance office commenced business, and received equal premiums from the young and from the old, from the healthy and the sick. But people were beginning to think. In 1777 fault was found with the charges of the Equitable, and the following scale proposed:-- 3_l._ per cent. 4_l._ per cent. 5_l._ per cent. 21 years of age 2 17 7 2 16 0 2 15 0 30 ” 3 13 4 3 12 8 3 12 5 40 ” 4 11 6 4 13 11 4 14 1 50 ” 5 15 5 5 18 0 5 17 4