per cent. only. In no fewer than twenty English counties, the
population, estimated as before, was absolutely less in 1670 than in
1630; and in Kent, the county in which Chart is situate, the decrease is
striking: population of Kent in 1630, 189,212; in 1670, 167,398; in
1700, 157,833; in 1750, 181,267; and in 1801, the enumerated population
was 307,624.

Your correspondent might also find it useful to consult Sir William
Petty's _Political Arithmetic_, the various documents compiled at the
different censuses, and the Reports of the Registrar-General.

ARUN.

* * * * *

PARISH REGISTER STATISTICS.--CHART, KENT.

Your correspondent "E.R.J.H." (No. 21. p. 330.) inquires whether any
general statistical returns, compiled from our early parish registers,
have been published. It must be a matter of regret to all who are
acquainted with the value of these national records--which for extent
and antiquity are unequalled in any other country--that this question
cannot be answered affirmatively. By the exertions of the late Mr.
Rickman, their importance, in a statistical point of view, has been
shown, but only to a very limited extent. In 1801, being entrusted with
the duty of collecting and arranging the returns of the first actual
enumeration of the population, he obtained from the clergyman of each
parish a statement of the number of baptisms and burials recorded in the
register book in every tenth year from 1700, and of marriages in every
consecutive year from 1754, when the Marriage Act of George II. took