So as there are more people at London than at Paris, Rouen, and Rome by 2,663.

Memorandum.—­That the parishes of Islington, Newington, and Hackney, for which only there is any colour of non-contiguity, is not one-fifty-second part of what is contained in the bills of mortality, and consequently London, without the said three parishes, hath more people than Paris and Rouen put together, by 114,284.

Which number of 114,284 is probably more people than any other city of France contains.

THE SECOND ESSAY.

As for other comparisons of London with Paris, we farther repeat and enlarge what hath been formerly said upon those matters, as followeth, viz.:-

1.  That forty per cent. die out of the hospitals at Paris where so many die unnecessarily, and scarce one-twentieth of that proportion out of the hospitals of London, which have been shown to be better than the best of Paris.

2.  That at Paris 81,280 kitchens are within less than 24,000 street-doors, which makes less cleanly and convenient way of living than at London.

3.  Where the number of christenings are near unto, or exceed the burials, the people are poorer, having few servants and little equipage.

4.  The river Thames is more pleasant and navigable than the Seine, and its waters better and more wholesome; and the bridge of London is the most considerable of all Europe.

5.  The shipping and foreign trade of London is incomparably greater than that at Paris and Rouen.

6.  The lawyers’ chambers at London have 2,772 chimnies in them, and are worth 140,000 pounds sterling, or 3,000,000 of French livres, besides the dwellings of their families elsewhere.

7.  The air is more wholesome, for that at London scarce two of sixteen die out of the worst hospitals, but at Paris above two of fifteen out of the best.  Moreover the burials of Paris are one-fifth part above and below the medium, but at London not above one-twelfth, so as the intemperies of the air at Paris is far greater than at London.

8.  The fuel cheaper, and lies in less room, the coals being a wholesome sulphurous bitumen.

9.  All the most necessary sorts of victuals, and of fish, are cheaper, and drinks of all sorts in greater variety and plenty.

10.  The churches of London we leave to be judged by thinking that nothing at Paris is so great as St. Paul’s was, and is like to be, nor so beautiful as Henry the Seventh’s chapel.

11.  On the other hand, it is probable, that there is more money in Paris than London, if the public revenue (grossly speaking, quadruple to that of England) be lodged there.

12.  Paris hath not been for these last fifty years so much infested with the plague as London; now that at London the plague (which between the years 1591 and 1666 made five returns, viz., every fifteen years, at a medium, and at each time carried away one-fifth of the people) hath not been known for the 21 years last past, and there is a visible way by God’s ordinary blessing to lessen the same by two-thirds when it next appeareth.