Page:PettyWilliam1899EconomicWritingsVol2.djvu/48

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Various Casualties.
355

doth to find out the Murtherers, and that for ever, until it be done.

11. The Lunaticks are also but few, viz. 158 in 229250, though I fear many more than are set down in our Bills, few being entred for such, but those who die at Bedlam; and there all seem to dye of their Lunacy, who died Lunaticks; for there is much difference in computing the number of Lunaticks, that die (though of Fevers and all other Diseases, unto which Lunacy is no Supersedeas) and those that dye by reason of their Madness.

12. So that, this Casualty being so uncertain, I shall not force my self to make any inference from the numbers and proportions we find in our Bills concerning it: only I dare ensure any man at this present, well in his Wits, for one in a thousand, that he shall not dye a Lunatick in Bedlam within these seven years, because I find not above one in about one thousand five hundred have done so.

13. The like use may be made of the Accompts of men that made away themselves, |32| who are another sort of Mad men, that think to ease themselves of pain by leaping into Hell; or else are yet more Mad, so as to think there is no such place; or that men may go to rest by death, though they dye in Self-murther, the greatest Sin.

14. We shall say nothing of the numbers of those that have been Drowned, Killed by falls from Scaffolds, or by Carts running over them, &c. because the same depends upon the casual Trade and Employment of men, and upon matters which are but circumstantial to the Seasons and Regions we live in, and affords little of that Science and Certainty we aim at.

15. We find one Casualty in our Bills, of which, though there be daily talk, there is little effect, much like our abhorrence of Toads and Snakes as most poisonous Creatures, whereas few men dare say upon their own knowledge they ever found harm by either; and this Casualty is the French Pox, gotten, for the most part, not so much by the intemperate use of Venery (which rather causeth the Gout) as of many common Women.