generally to the application, and Mr. Rickman obtained nearly 3000 returns of the earliest date required (1570), and nearly 4000 (from not much less than half the parishes of England) as far back as 1600; those for the more recent periods being tolerably complete from all the counties.  The interesting details thus collected have not been published; nor am I able to say where the original returns, if still extant, are deposited.  In pursuance of this design, however, Mr. Rickman proceeded with these materials to calculate the probable population of the several counties on the supposition that the registered baptisms, &c., in 1570, 1600, and at the other assigned periods, bore the same proportion to the actual population as in 1801.  The numerical results are embodied in a table which appears in the Census Enumeration Abstract for 1841 (Preface, pp. 36, 37.), and it is stated that there is reason for supposing the estimate arrived at to be an approximation to the truth.

During the Civil Wars and the Protectorate, few parochial registers were kept with any degree of accuracy; indeed, in many parishes they are altogether defective at that period, owing to the temporary expulsion of the clergy from their benefices.  It is not improbable, therefore, that the remarkable decrease of baptismal entries in the register book of Chart next Sutton Valence may have arisen partly from imperfect registration, as well as from the other causes suggested.  But the trifling increase observable after the Restoration undoubtedly points to the conclusion arrived at by your corespondent—­that a great diminution had taken place in the population of the parish:  and Mr. Rickman’s estimate above referred to gives a result for the entire county, which, if it does not fully establish the supposed decrease, shows at least that the registers of other Kentish parishes were affected in a similar manner.  The following is the estimated population of Kent, deduced from the baptisms, burials, and marriages, by Mr. Rickman:—­

A.D.        Population
1570        136,710
1600        161,236
1630        189,212
1670        167,398
1700        157,833
1750        181,267

The population enumerated in 1801 was 307,624, which had increased to 548,337 in 1841.

Applying the average of England to the parish {443} of Chart, the 120 baptisms in the years 1640-1659, if representing the actual births, would indicate a population of about 200 during that period; while the 246 entries in the previous twenty years would give upwards of 400 inhabitants.  According to the several censuses, Chart contained 381 persons in 1801, and 424, 500, 610, 604, respectively, at the subsequent decades.

While on the subject of parish registers, I may add, that a scheme has been propounded by the Rev. E. Wyatt Edgell, in a paper read before the Statistical Society, for transcribing and printing in a convenient form the whole of the extant parish register books of England and Wales, thus concentrating those valuable records, and preserving, before it is too late, their contents from the effects of time and accidental injuries.  The want of funds to defray the cost of copying and printing is the one great difficulty of the plan.