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these were but few. It was thought that there were not less than 1000 houses forsaken of the inhabitants in the city and suburbs, including what was in the out-parishes, and in Surrey, or the side of the water they called Southwark. This was besides the numbers of lodgers, and of particular persons who were fled out of their families, so that in all it was computed that about 200,000 people were fled and gone in all.

'For my own part, I had in my family only an ancient woman that managed the house, a maid-servant, two apprentices, and myself; and the plague beginning to increase about us, I had many sad thoughts about what course I should take, and how I should act. The many dismal objects which happened everywhere as I went about the streets, had filled my mind with a great deal of horror, for fear of the distemper itself, which was indeed very horrible in itself, and in some more than others: the swellings, which were generally in the neck or groin, when they grew hard, and would not break, grew so painful, that it was equal to the most exquisite torture; and some, not able to bear the torment, threw themselves out at windows, or shot themselves, or otherwise made themselves. away; and I saw several dismal objects of that kind: others, unable to contain themselves, vented their pain by incessant roarings; and such loud and lamentable cries were to be heard, as we walked along the streets, that would pierce the very heart to think of, especially when it was to be considered that the same dreadful scourge might be expected every moment to seize upon ourselves.

'Terrified by those frightful objects, I would retire home sometimes, and resolve to go out no more; and perhaps I would keep these resolutions for three or four days, which time I spent in the most serious thankfulness for my preservation, and the preservation of my family, and the constant confession of my sins, giving myself up to God every day, and applying to him with fasting, and humiliation, and meditation; such intervals as I had, I employed in reading books, and in writing down my memorandums of what occurred to me every day.

'I had a very good friend, a physician, whose name was Heath, whom I frequently visited during this dismal time, and to whose advice I was very much obliged for many things. Dr Heath coming to visit me, and finding that I ventured so often out in the streets, earnestly persuaded me to lock myself up and my family, and not to suffer any of us to go out of doors; to keep all our windows fast, shutters and curtains close, and never to open them; but first to make a very strong smoke in the room, where the window or door was to be opened, with rosin and pitch, brimstone and gunpowder, and the like and we did this for some time; but as I had not laid in a store of provision for such a retreat, it was impossible that we could keep within doors entirely. However, I attempted, though it was so very late, to do something towards it; and first, as I had

convenience both for brewing and baking, I went and bought two sacks of meal, and for several weeks, having an oven, we baked all our own bread; also I bought malt, and brewed as much beer as all the casks I had would hold, and which seemed enough to serve my house for five or six weeks; also I laid in a quantity of salt butter and Cheshire cheese; but I had no flesh-meat, and the plague raged so violently among the butchers and slaughter-houses on the other side of our street, where they are known to dwell in great numbers, that it was not advisable so much as to go over the street among them.

'It is true people used all possible precaution: when any one bought a joint of meat in the market, they would not take it out of the butcher's hand, but took it off the hooks themselves. On the other hand, the butcher would not touch the money, but have it put into a pot full of vinegar, which he kept for that purpose. The buyer always carried small money, to make up any odd sum, that they might take no change. They carried bottles for scents and perfumes in their hands, and all the means that could be used were employed; but then the poor could not do even these things, and they went at all hazards. Innumerable dismal stories we heard every day on this very account. Sometimes a man or woman dropped down dead in the very markets; for many people that had the plague upon them knew nothing of it till the inward gangrene had affected their vitals, and they died in a few moments; this caused that many died frequently in that manner in the street suddenly, without any warning; others perhaps had time to go to the next bulk or stall, or to any door or porch, and just sit down and die. These objects were so frequent in the streets, that when the plague came to be very raging on one side, there was scarcely any passing by the streets, but that several dead bodies would be lying here and there upon the ground: on the other hand, it is observable that though at first the people would stop as they went along, and call to the neighbours to come out on such an occasion, yet afterwards no notice was taken of them; but that if at any time we found a corpse lying, go across the way, and not come near it; or if in a narrow lane or passage, go back again, and seek some other way to go on the business we were upon; and in these cases the corpse was always left till the officers had notice to come and take it away, or till night, when the bearers attending the dead-cart would take it up and carry it away.'

THE PLAGUE AT ITS HEIGHT-AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER 1665.

During the month of July the plague had been fearfully increasing. The deaths by plague for the week ending the 4th of July had been, as we have mentioned, 470; the deaths, however, for the week ending

the 1st of August were reported at 2010; and this, as usual, was far below the real number.

'I had,' continues Defoe, 'taken my friend the physician's advice, and locked myself and my family up, and resolved to suffer the hardship of living a few months without flesh-meat, rather than to purchase it at the hazard of our lives.

'But though I confined my family, I could not prevail upon my unsatisfied curiosity to stay within entirely myself; and though I generally came frightened and terrified home, yet I could not restrain; only that, indeed, I did not do it so frequently as at first.

'In these walks I had inany dismal scenes before my eyes, as, particularly, of persons falling dead in the streets, terrible shrieks and screechings of women, who, in their agonies, would throw open their chamber windows, and cry out in a dismal surprising manner. It is impossible to describe the variety of postures in which the passions of the poor people would express themselves.

'Passing through Token-House Yard, in Lothbury, of a sudden a casement violently opened just over my head, and a woman gave three frightful screeches, and then cried: "O death, death, death!" in a most inimitable tone, and which struck me with horror, and a chilliness in my very blood. There was nobody to be seen in the whole street, neither did any other window open, for people had no curiosity now in any case, nor could anybody help one another; so I went on to pass into Bell-alley.

'Just in Bell-alley, on the right hand of the passage, there was a more terrible cry than that, though it was not so directed out at the window; but the whole family were in a terrible fright, and I could hear women and children run screaming about the rooms like distracted, when a garret window opened, and somebody from a window on the other side the alley called and asked: "What is the matter?" Upon which, from the first window, it was answered: My old master has hanged himself!"

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'It is scarcely credible what dreadful cases happened in particular families every day. People, in the rage of the distemper, or in the torment of their swellings, which was indeed intolerable, running out of their own government, raving and distracted, and oftentimes laying violent hands upon themselves, throwing themselves out at their windows, shooting themselves, &c. Mothers murdering their own children in their lunacy; some dying of mere grief, as a passion; some of mere fright and surprise, without any infection at all; others frightened into idiotism and foolish distractions; some into despair and lunacy; others into melancholy madness.

"The pain of the swelling was in particular very violent, and to some intolerable; the physicians and surgeons may be said to have tortured many poor creatures even to death. The swellings in some grew hard, and they applied violent drawing-plasters or poultices to break them; and if these did not do, they cut and scarified them in

a terrible manner. In some, those swellings were made hard, partly by the force of the distemper, and partly by their being too violently drawn; and were so hard, that no instrument could cut them; and then they burned them with caustics, so that many died raving mad with the torment, and some in the very operation. In these distresses, some, for want of help to hold them down in their beds, or to look to them, laid hands upon themselves, as already stated; some broke out into the streets, perhaps naked, and would run directly down to the river, if they were not stopped by the watchmen or other officers, and plunge themselves into the water wherever they found it.

'We had at this time a great many frightful stories told us of nurses and watchmen who looked after the dying people; that is to say, hired nurses, who attended infected people, using them barbarously, starving them, smothering them, or by other wicked means hastening their end; that is to say, murdering of them. And watchmen being set to guard houses that were shut up, when there has been but one person left, and perhaps that one lying sick, that they have broken in and murdered that body, and immediately throwing it out into the dead-cart; and so it has gone scarcely cold to the grave.

'I cannot say but that some such murders were committed, and I think two were sent to prison for it, but died before they could be tried; and I have heard that three others, at several times, were executed for murders of that kind. But I must say I believe nothing of its being so common a crime as some have since been pleased to say.

'The robberies extended chiefly to wearing-clothes, linen, and what rings or money they could come at, when the person died who was under their care, but not to a general plunder of the houses; and I could give you an account of one of these nurses, who, several years after, being on her death-bed, confessed, with the utmost horror, the robberies she had committed at the time of her being a nurse, and by which she had enriched herself to a great degree; but as for murders, I do not find that there was ever any proof of the facts, in the manner as it has been reported, except as above.

'A neighbour and acquaintance of mine having some money owing to him from a shopkeeper in Whitecross Street, or thereabouts, sent his apprentice, a youth about eighteen years of age, to endeavour to get the money. He came to the door, and finding it shut, knocked pretty hard, and, as he thought, heard somebody answer within, but was not sure, so he waited; and after some stay knocked again; and then a third time, when he heard somebody coming down stairs. At length the man of the house came to the door; he had on his breeches or drawers, and a yellow flannel waistcoat, no stockings, a pair of slipt shoes, a white cap on his head, and, as the young man said, death in his face. When he

opened the door, says he: "What do you disturb me thus for?" The boy, though a little surprised, replied: "I come from such-aone, and my master sent me for the money, which he says you know of." "Very well, child," returns the living ghost; "call as you go by at Cripplegate church, and bid them ring the bell;" and with these words shut the door again, and went up and died the same day, nay, perhaps the same hour.

'This puts me in mind of John Hayward, who was at that time under-sexton of the parish of St Stephen, Coleman Street: by under-sexton was understood at that time gravedigger and bearer of the dead. This man carried, or assisted to carry, all the dead to their graves which were buried in that large parish, and who were carried in form; and after that form of burying was stopped, went with the dead-cart and the bell to fetch the dead bodies from the houses where they lay, and fetched many of them out of the chambers and houses; for the parish was, and is still remarkable, particularly above all the parishes in London, for a great number of alleys and thoroughfares, very long, into which no carts could come, and where they were obliged to go and fetch the bodies a very long way, which alleys now remain to witness it; such as White's Alley, Cross-key Court, Swan-alley, Bell-alley, White Horse Alley, and many more. Here they went with a kind of handbarrow, and laid the dead bodies on, and carried them out to the carts; which work he performed, and never had the distemper at all, but lived about twenty years after it, and was sexton of the parish to the time of his death. His wife, at the same time, was a nurse to infected people, and tended many that died in the parish, being for her honesty recommended by the parish officers; yet she was never infected. He never used any preservative against the infection other than holding garlic and rue in his mouth, and smoking tobacco; this I also had from his own mouth; and his wife's remedy was washing her head in vinegar, and sprinkling her head-clothes so with vinegar as to keep them always moist; and if the smell of any of those she waited on was more than ordinary offensive, she snuffed vinegar up her nose, and sprinkled vinegar upon her head-clothes, and held a handkerchief, wetted with vinegar, to her mouth.

'It was under this John Hayward's care, and within his bounds, that the story of the piper, with which people have made themselves so merry, happened, and he assured me that it was true. It is said that it was a blind piper; but, as John told me, the fellow was not blind, but an ignorant weak poor man, and usually went his rounds about ten o'clock at night, and went piping along from door to door; and the people usually took him in at public-houses where they knew him, and would give him drink and victuals, and sometimes farthings and he in return would pipe and sing, and talk simply, which diverted the people; and thus he lived. It was but a very bad time for this diversion while things were as I have told; yet the poor fellow

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