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.

JAMES T. HAMMACK.

April 2.

* * * * *

EARLY STATISTICS.--PARISH REGISTERS.

In reference to the observations of your correspondent "E.R.J.H.," he
will find, upon closer examination, that no comparison approaching to
accuracy can be made between the population of any place at different
periods of the seventeenth century, founded upon the entries in parish
registers of baptisms, births, or marriages. In 1653 the ecclesiastical
registers ceased to contain much of the information they had before
given. In that year was passed, "An Act how Marriages shall be