MORTALITY, bills of, registers of the number of deaths or burials in any parish or district. The establishment of bills of mortality in Great Britain originated in the frequent appearance of the plague, which formerly made great devastations in this country, and an abstract of the number of deaths was published weekly, to show the increase or decrease of the disorder, that individuals might not be ex posed to unfounded alarms, but have some means of judging of the necessity of re moval, or of taking other precautions, and government be informed of the propriety or success of any public measures relat. ing to the disorder. Since the disappear ance of the plague, these registers have been continued, from the convenience found in ascertaining by them the precise time of the birth or death of individuals, and for the information they furnish re specting the rate of human mortality, and the state of population.
The first directions for keeping parish registers of births and burials were given in 1538, when Thomas Cromwell was ap• pointed the king's vicegerent for eccle siastical jurisdiction, and in that capacity issued certain injunctions to the clergy, one of which ordains, that every officiat ting minister shall, for every church, keep a book, wherein he shall register every marriage, christening, and burial ; and the injunction goes on to direct the manner and lime of making the entries in the re gister hook weekly, neglect of which is made penal In 1547 all episcopal au thority was suspended for a time, while the ecclesiastical visitors then appointed went through the several dioceses to en force divers injunctions, among which was that respecting parish registers. This in junction was again repeated in the begin ning of the reign of Elizabeth, who also appointed a protestation to be made by the clergy, in which, among other things, they promised to keep the register book in a proper manner. One of the canons of the church of England prescribes very minutely in what manner entries are to be made in the parish registers, and or ders an attested copy of the register of each successive year to be annually trans mitted to the bishop of the diocese, to be preserved in the bishop's registry. This canon also contains a retrospective clause, appointing that the ancient registers, so far as they could be procured, but espe cially since the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, should be copied into a parch ment book, to be provided by every pa rish; which regulation was so well obey ed, that most of the ancient parish regis ters now extant, commence with that queen's reign, and some of them earlier,
.quite as far back as the date of the origi nal injunction.
The London bills of mortality are found ed upon the reports of the sworn search ers, who view the body after decease, and deliver their report to the parish clerk. The parish clerks are required, under a penalty for neglect, to make a weekly re turn of burials, with the age and disease of which the person died ; a summary of which account is published weekly ; and on the Thursday before Christmas-day, a general account is made up for the whole year. These general accounts of christen ings and bunals, taken by the company of parish clerks of London, were began December 21, 1592 ; and in 1594 the weekly account was first made public, as also the general or yearly account, until December 18, 1595, when they were dis continued upon the ceasing of the plague; in 1603 they were resumed, and have been regularly continued ever since. The original bills comprehended only 109 pa rishes, but several others were afterwards included, and in 1660 the bills were new modelled, the twelve parishes in Middle sex and Surry being made a division by themselves, as were likewise the five pa rishes in the city and liberties of West minster. Several other parishes have been added to them at subsequent pe riods, but many of them have been mere ly new parishes formed out of larger ones which were before included, and the total number of parishes now comprehended in the London bills of mortality is 146. They are divided into the ninety-seven parishes within the walls, sixteen parishes without the walls, twenty-three out-pa rishes in Middlesex and Sorry, and ten parishes in the city and liberties of West minster They give the ages at which the persons die, and a list of the diseases and casualties by which their death was occasioned but little dependence can be placed on the list of diseases, except with respect to some of the most common and determinate.