Essays on Mankind and Political ArithmeticPetty, William, Sir
History
Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic
Petty, William, Sir
London (England) -- Population; Population
The London observations flowed from bills regularly kept for near one
hundred years, but these are squeezed out of six straggling London bills,
out of fifteen Dublin bills, and from a note of the families and hearths
in each parish of Dublin, which are all digested into the one table or
sheet annexed, consisting of three parts, marked A, B, C; being indeed
the A, B, C of public economy, and even of that policy which tends to
peace and plenty.
_Observations upon the Table A_.
1. The total of the burials in London (for the said six straggling years
mentioned in the Table A) is 120,170, whereof the medium or sixth part is
20,028, and exceeds the burials of Paris, as may appear by the late bills
of that city.
2. The births, for the same time, are 73,683, the medium or sixth part
whereof is 12,280, which is about five-eighth parts of the burials, and
shows that London would in time decrease quite away, were it not supplied
out of the country, where are about five births for four burials, the
proportion of breeders in the country being greater than in the city.
3. The burials in Dublin for the said six years were 9,865, the sixth
part or medium whereof is 1,644, which is about the twelfth part of the
London burials, and about a fifth part over. So as the people of London
do hereby seem to be above twelve times as many as those of Dublin.
4. The births in the same time at Dublin are 6,157, the sixth part or
medium whereof is 1,026, which is also about five-eighth parts of the
1,644 burials, which shows that the proportion between burials and births
are alike at London and Dublin, and that the accounts are kept alike, and
consequently are likely to be true, there being no confederacy for that
purpose; which, if they be true, we then say—
5. That the births are the best way (till the accounts of the people
shall be purposely taken) whereby to judge of the increase and decrease
of people, that of burials being subject to more contingencies and
variety of causes.
6. If births be as yet the measure of the people, and that the births
(as has been shown) are as five to eight, then eight-fifths of the births
is the number of the burials, where the year was not considerable for
extraordinary sickness or salubrity, and is the rule whereby to measure
the same. As for example, the medium of births in Dublin was 1,026, the
eight-fifths whereof is 1,641, but the real burials were 1,644; so as in
the said years they differed little from the 1,641, which was the
standard of health, and consequently the years 1680, 1674, and 1668 were
sickly years, more or less, as they exceeded the said number, 1,641; and
the rest were healthful years, more or less, as they fell short of the
same number. But the city was more or less populous, as the births
differed from the number 1,026, viz., populous in the years 1680, 1679,
1678, and 1668, for other causes of this difference in births are very
occult and uncertain.
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