iest bills of mortality now in existence date back to the time
of Henry VIII, when the clerks were required to furnish information with
regard to the deaths caused by plague, as well as those resulting from
other causes. The returns of the victims of plague are occasionally very
large. In 1562, 20,372 persons died, of which number 17,404 died from
the plague. The burial grounds of the City became terribly overcrowded,
and the parish clerks were ordered to report upon the space available in
the City churchyards. They also were appointed to see to "the shutting
up of infected houses and putting papers on the doors."

An early "Bill of Mortality" is preserved at the Hall. It tells of "the
Number of those who dyed in the Citie of London and Liberties of the
same from the 28th of December 1581 to the 17th of December 1582, with
the Christenings. And also the number of all those who have died of the
plague in every parish particularly. Blessed are the Dead." There is
also preserved a number of the weekly bills of mortality. Referring to
the year of the Great Plague, 1665, these documents show that at the
beginning of the pestilence in April, during one week only fifty-seven
persons died; whereas in September the death-roll had reached the
enormous number of 6544.

The company seems to have been a useful agency for carrying out all
kinds of duties connected with gathering the statistics of mortality,
nor do they seem to have been overpaid for their trouble. In the early
years of the seventeenth century L 3. 6 s. 8 d. was all that they
received. In 1607 the sum was increased to L8, inasmuch as they were
ordered to furnish a bill to the Queen and the Lord Chancellor as well
as to the King. Some clerks endeavoured to make illicit gains by
supplying the public with "false and untrue bills," or distributing some
bills for each week before they had been sent to the Lord Mayor; and any
brother who "by any cunning device gave away, dispersed, uttered, or
declared, or by sinister device cast forth at any window, hole, or
crevice of a wall any bills or notes" before the due returns had been
sent to the Lord Mayor, was ordered to pay a fine of 10 s. and other
divers penalties.

The methods of making out these returns are very curious, and did not
conduce to infallible accuracy. In each parish there were persons called
searchers, ancient women who were informed by the sexton of a death, and
whose duty it was to visit the deceased and st