Page:PettyWilliam1899EconomicWritingsVol2.djvu/78

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Number of Families in London.
385

might be twice as many Women Aged between 16 and 76, as between 16 and 40, or between 20 and 44; and that there were about eight Persons in a Family, one with another, viz. the Man and his Wife, three Children and three Servants or Lodgers: now 8 times 48000 makes 384000.

5. Secondly, I find, by telling the number of Families in some Parishes within the Walls, that 3 out of 11 Families per annum have died: wherefore, 13000 having died in the whole, it should follow, there were 48000[1] Families according to the last-mentioned Account.

6. Thirdly, the Account, which I made of the Trained-Bands and Auxiliary-Souldiers doth enough justifie this Account.

7. And lastly, I took the Map of London set out in the year 1658 by Richard Newcourt[2], drawn by a Scale of Yards. Now I ghessed that in 100 Yards square there might be about 54 Families, supposing every House |83| to be 20 Foot in the front: for on two sides of the said square there will be 100 Yards of Housing in each, and in the two other sides 80 each; in all 360 Yards: that is, 54 Families in each square, of which there are 220 within the Walls, making in all 11880 Families within the Walls. But forasmuch as there die within the Walls about 3200 per Annum, and in the whole 13000; it follows, that the Housing within the Walls is ¼ part of the whole, and consequently, that there are 47520 Families in and about London, which agrees well enough with all my former computations: the worst whereof doth sufficiently demonstrate, that there are two Millions[3] of People in London, which nevertheless most men do believe, as they do, that there be three Women for one Man, whereas there

  1. More accurately 47,667.
  2. "An exact Delineation of the Cities of London and Westminster and the Suburbs Thereof, Together wth ye Bunrough of Southwark And All ye Throughfares Highwayes Streetes Lanes and Common Allies wthin ye same Composed by a Scale and Ichnographically described by Richard Newcourt of Somerton in the Countie of Somersett Gentleman. Willm Faithorne sculpsit."——Facsimile, London: E. Stanford, 1878.
  3. The first edition has, "that there are no Millions," the fourth, "that there are not two Millions."