D. 1685, there were 29,325 hearths in Dublin, and
6,400 houses, and in London 388 thousand hearths, whereby there must
have been at that rate 87,000 houses in London. Moreover I found
that in Bristol there were in the same year 16,752 hearth; and 5,307
houses, and in London 388,000 hearths as aforesaid; at which rate
there must have been 123,000 houses in London, and at a medium
between Dublin and Bristol proportions 105,000 houses.
Lastly, by certificate from the hearth office, I find the houses
within the bills of mortality to be 105,315.
Having thus found the houses, I proceed next to the number of
families in them, and first I thought that if there were three or
four families or kitchens in every house of Paris, there might be
two families in one-tenth of the housing of London; unto which
supposition, the common opinion of several friends doth concur with
my own conjectures.
As to the number of heads in each family, I stick to Grant's
observation in page --- of his fifth edition, that in tradesmen of
London's families there be eight heads one with another, in families
of higher ranks, above ten, and in the poorest near live, according
to which proportions, I had upon another occasion pitched the medium
of heads in all the families of England to be six and one-third, but
quitting the fraction in this case, I agree with Monsieur Auzout for
six.
To conclude, the houses of London being 105,315 and the addition of
double families 10,531 more, in all 115,846; I multiplied the same
by six, which produced 695,076 for the number of the people.
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