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Early Bills of Mortality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Cornelius Walford
Affiliation:
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Extract

I am not sure that I can say much respecting the Early Bills of Mortality, issued in thisand other countries, which may be regarded as entirely new. I shall endeavour that what I do say shall be entirely true; or where any doubt exists, I will endeavour to make the fact of its existence plain.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1878

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References

page 213 note * Vide Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, where furtnerparticulars will be found.

page 214 note * I have used certain abbreviations in this paper, in view of saving space. I think they are such as will be readily understood.

page 215 * Incorporated as early as 1253 by Charter 17 Hen.III.

page 216 * Dr. Farr, of the English Registrar-General's office, says, “Abstracts burials, baptisms, and marriages were directed to be compiled in each parish; and persons were appointed to view the bodies of all that died before they were suffered to be buried, and to certify of what probable disease each individual died, in statements of which it was the duty of the minister to make a weekly return.”

page 223 note * Vide Burnett's Hist, of his own Time.

page 229 note * He says in his own quaint and modest way, in one of his works, “The accounts which follow I reckon but as timber and stones; and the best inferences I can make are but as hewing them to a square: as for composing a beautiful structure out of them, I leave it to the architecture of the said society, under whom I think it honour enough to work as a labourer.” It is the Royal Society, of which he had been elected a fellow, that he here refers to.

page 234 note * Paftish registers were first instituted this year under a mandate of Thomas Cromwell (Essex), who after the abolition of the Pope's authority in England had been appointed the King's Vicegerent in ecclesiastical affairs (Reign of Henry VIII.).

page 241 note * I do not know by what coincidence it first came about that the price of Bread was appended to the Bills of mort. &c.; it was so in the London Bills (not the earliest). It is quite certain that the price of food has a very important bearing upon the number of deaths.

page 245 note * It will be seen from what follows that there is reason for doubt asto whether a separate Bill was pub. for this city, or whether it is not the Registers of Deaths which are really referred to.

page 247 note * Phil, Vide. Trans. for 1796Google Scholar .

page 248 note * The first judicial occasion for valuing lives arose in consequence of the Falcidian law (Lex Falcidia de Legatt), which in B.C.40 was adopted in the Roman empire, and which declared that a testator should not give more than three-fourths of his property in legacies, and thus one-fourth was required to be secured to his legal heirs. It became necessary, as a consequence, to have the means of valuing legacies given in the form ofannuities, &c, and means were found.