Page:PettyWilliam1899EconomicWritingsVol2.djvu/29

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336
Graunt's Observations.

in the year 1603, after the great Plague then happening likewise[1].

3. These Bills were printed and published, not only every Week on Thursdays, but also a general Accompt of the whole Year was given in upon the Thursday before Christmas-day: which said general Accompts have been presented in the several manners following, viz. from the Year 1603, to the Year 1624, inclusive, according to the Pattern here inserted[2].

1623. 1624.

The general Bill for the whole Year, of all the Burials and Christnings, as well within the City of London, and the Liberties thereof, as in the Nine out Parishes adjoyning to the City, with the Pest-house be-|3|longing to the same: from Thursday the 18. of December 1623, to Thursday the 16. of December, 1624, according to the Report made to the King's most Excellent Majesty by the Company of the Parish-Clerks of London.
BUried this Year in the Fourscore and seventeen
Parishes of London within the Walls,
3386
Whereof of the Plague, 1
  1. Graunt's conjecture of a connection between the Plague and the origin of the bills is confirmed by their earlier history. Cf. Introduction, also Creighton, Epidemics, i. 294—295, Ogle in Jour. of the Stat. Soc. lv. 438.
  2. A printed weekly bill for 5—12 November, 1607, a ms. weekly bill for 10—17 August, 1609, and a blank form for a weekly bill with printed date of 1610 are preserved at the Record Office. State Papers, Dom., James I., xxviii. 89; xlvii. 85—86; lviii. 102. All vary in unimportant particulars from the pattern of a yearly bill which Graunt gives. The bill of 1607 lacks the entry of those buried of the plague without the liberties in Middlesex and Surrey, the bill of 1609, though it gives them does not include them in its total burials, while the form for a bill dated 1610 both includes them in its total and also omits to enter separately "the whole sum of all the burials in London and the liberties thereof." The ms. bill of 1609 is further peculiar in that it consists of two independent parts. The second part is devoted to the nine out parishes enumerated by Graunt on p. 341 below. These parishes the bill locates "in Westminster," and the first part omits their figures in making up the total of burials.