ABRACADABRA, with the letters arranged in a triangle or pyramid." In short, all remedies were grasped at that quackery or ignorance could suggest; the plague, meanwhile, spreading far and wide.

THE PLAGUE INCREASES-PRECAUTIONS TAKEN BY THE

MAGISTRATES-HOUSES SHUT UP.

The mortality increased as the summer advanced. Thus, for the week ending the 13th of June 1665, the number of burials, according to the bills of mortality, were 558, and of these 112 were from plague; in the following week, the deaths from plague were reported at 168; in the week ending the 27th of June, they had risen to 267; and in that ending the 4th of July, they were 470; and to all these returns would require to be added the numbers of those who had really died of plague, but whose deaths had been attributed by their friends to other diseases.

It was at the beginning of July that the lord mayor and magistrates of the city of London-whose conduct during the whole period of the plague was as noble and praiseworthy as the conduct of public officers in a great emergency could be-published their orders for the regulation of the city. By these orders were appointed, in every parish, persons with the title of examiners, who were to be citizens of good repute, and whose office was to last two months. These examiners were to "be sworn by the aldermen, to inquire and learn from time to time what houses in every parish be visited, and what persons be sick, and of what diseases, as near as they can inform themselves; and upon doubt in that case, to command restraint of access until it appear what the disease shall prove; and if they find any person sick of the infection, to give orders to the constable that the house be shut up; and if the constable shall be found remiss and negligent, to give notice thereof to the alderman of the ward."

Besides these examiners, there were to be "women-searchers in every parish, such as are of honest reputation, and of the best sort as can be got in this kind; and these to be sworn to make due search and true report, to the utmost of their knowledge, whether the persons whose bodies they are appointed to search do die of the infection, or of what other diseases, as near as they No searcher, during the time of visitation, to be permitted to use any public work or employment, or keep a shop or stall, or be employed as a laundress, or in any other common employment whatsover."

can.

"And

Surgeons were also to be appointed in each parish. forasmuch as the said chirurgeons are to be sequestered from all other cures, and kept only to this disease of the infection, it is ordered that every of the said chirurgeons shall have twelvepence a body searched by them, to be paid out of the goods of the party searched, if he be able, or otherwise by the parish."

Lastly, there were to be nurses or keepers to attend the sick persons in their houses, and watchmen to prevent ingress into or egress from the infected houses. The order for the watchmen was as follows:-"That to every infected house there be appointed two watchmen, one for every day, and the other for the night; and that these watchmen have a special care that no person go in or out of such infected houses whereof they have the charge, upon pain of severe punishment. And the said watchmen to do such further offices as the sick house shall need and require; and if the watchman be sent upon any business, to lock up the house, and take the key with him; and the watchman by day to attend until ten o'clock at night, and the watchman by night until six in the morning."

The general regulations to be observed by householders were as follow:-" Orders concerning Infected Houses and Persons sick of the Plague.-Notice to be given of the sickness. The master of every house, as soon as any one in his house complaineth either of blotch, or purple, or swelling in any part of his body, or falleth otherwise dangerously sick without apparent cause of some other disease, shall give notice thereof to the examiner of health within two hours after the said sign shall appear.

ແ Sequestration of the sick.-As soon as any man shall be found by this examiner, chirurgeon, or searcher to be sick of the plague, he shall, the same night, be sequestered in the same house; and in case he be so sequestered, then, though they die not, the house wherein he sickened should be shut up for a month, after the use of the due preservatives taken by the rest.

Airing the stuff.-For sequestration of the goods and stuff of the infection, their bedding, and apparel, and hangings of chambers must be well aired with fire, and such perfumes as are requisite, within the infected house, before they be taken again to use. This to be done by the appointment of the examiner.

66 Shutting up of the house. If any person shall visit any man known to be infected of the plague, or entereth willingly into any known infected house, being not allowed, the house wherein he inhabiteth shall be shut up for certain days by the examiner's direction.

"None to be removed out of infected houses.-That none be removed out of the house where he falleth sick of the infection into any other house in the city (except it be to the pest-house, or a tent, or into some such house which the owner of the said house holdeth in his own hands, and occupieth by his own servants), and so as security be given to the said parish whither such remove is made, that the attendance and charge about the said visited persons shall be observed and charged in all the particularities before expressed, without any cost of that parish to which any such remove shall happen to be made; and this remove to be done by night: and it shall be lawful to any person

that hath two houses, to remove either his sound or his infebteds people to his s spare house at his choice, so as if he send away first his sound, he do not after send thither the sick, nor again untoo the sick the sound; and that the same which he sendeth bel for one week at the least shut up, and secluded from company, fore fear of some infection at first not appearing. redto on

"Burial of the dead. That the burial of the dead by this visi tation be at most convenient hours, always before sunrising, or after sunsetting, with the privity of the churchwardens or constable, and not otherwise; and that no neighbours nor friends ber suffered to accompany the corpse to church, or to enter the house visited, upon pain of having his house shut up, or be imprisoned. And that no corpse dying of the infection shall be buried, or remain in any church in time of common prayer, sermon, or lecture; and that no children be suffered, at the time of burial of any corpse, in any church, churchyard, or burying-place, to come near the corpse, coffin, or grave; and that all graves shall be at least six feet deep. And further, all public assemblies at others burials are to be forborne during the continuance of this visi-} tation.

"No infected stuff to be uttered. That no clothes, stuff, bedding, or garments, be suffered to be carried or conveyed out of any infected houses; and that the criers and carriers abroad of bedding or old apparel to be sold or pawned be utterly pro hibited and restrained; and no brokers of bedding or old apparel be permitted to make any public show, or hang forth on their stalls, shop-boards, or windows towards any street, lane, com mon-way, or passage, any old bedding or apparel to be sold, upon pain of imprisonment. And if any broker or other person shall buy any bedding, apparel, or other stuff out of any infected house, within two months after the infection hath been there, his house shall be shut up as infected, and so shall continue shut up twenty days at the least.

66 Every visited house to be marked. That every house visited be marked with a red cross, of a foot long, in the middle of the door, evident to be seen, and with these usual printed words; that is to say, 'Lord have mercy upon us!' to be set close over the same cross, there to continue until lawful opening of the same house.

Every visited house to be watched. That the constables see every house shut up, and to be attended with watchmen, which may keep in, and minister necessaries to them at their own charges, if they be able, or at the common charge if they be unable. The shutting up to be for the space of four weeks after all be whole. That precise order be taken that the searchers, chirurgeons, keepers, and buriers are not to pass the streets without holding a red rod or wand of three feet in length in their hands, open and evident to be seen; and are not to go into any other house than into their own, or into that whereunto they

abetdirected or sent for, but to forbear and abstain from company, especially when they have been lately used in any such business or attendance.u

10 Inmates. That where several inmates are in one and the same house, and any person in that house happens to be infected, no other person or family of such house shall be suffered to remove him or themselves without a certificate from the examiners of the health of that parish; or in default thereof, the house whither she or they remove shall be shut up, as is in case of visitation. T

"Hackney-coaches.-That care be taken of hackney-coachmen, that they may not, as some of them have been observed tó do, after carrying of infected persons to the pest-house and other places, be admitted to common use till their coaches be wellaired, and have stood unemployed by the space of five or six days after such service.

For the better execution of these orders, and such other rules and directions as upon further consideration shall be found needful, it was ordered and enjoined that the aldermen, deputies, and common-councilmen should meet together weekly, once, twice, thrice, or oftener, as cause should require, at some one general place accustomed in their respective wards, being clear from infection of the plague, to consult how the said orders may be put in execution.'

These orders extended of course only to that part of London called the City, which was under the jurisdiction of the lord mayor and aldermen; similar precautions, however, were put in force by the authorities in the other parts of the metropolis.

66

From the date of the publication of these orders, all the houses in which any one was ill of the plague were shut up and watched, How fearful to have walked along the deserted streets, seeing at every few paces a door boarded up, with a huge red cross painted on it, and the awful words, "Lord have mercy on us!" written beneath. But to gain an idea of these horrors, we must return to Defoe, "The shutting up of houses," he says, was at first counted a very cruel and unchristian method, and the poor people so confined made bitter lamentations; complaints of the severity of it were also daily brought to my lord mayor, of houses causelessly, and some maliciously shut up. I cannot say, but upon inquiry, many that complained so loudly were found in a condition to be continued; and others again, inspection being made upon the sick person, and the sickness not appearing infectious; or if uncertain, yet, on his being content to be carried to the pest-house, was released."

The precautions adopted to keep the infected in their houses" in many cases failed; for they got out, by the connivance of neighbours, through gardens or courts in the rear of the dwellings. Many who thus escaped were driven to dreadful exigencies and extremities, and perished in the streets or fields for

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mere want, or dropped down by the raging violence of the fever upon them. Others wandered into the country, and went forward any way as their desperation guided them, not knowing whither they went or would go, till, faint and tired, and not getting any relief-the houses and villages on the road refusing to admit them to lodge, whether infected or not-they have perished by the roadside, or gotten into barns and died there, none daring to come to them, or relieve them, though perhaps not infected, for nobody would believe them.

"To come back to the case of families infected and shut up in their houses. The misery of those families is not to be expressed; and it was generally in such houses that we heard the most dismal shrieks and outcries of the poor people, terrified, and even frightened to death, by the sight of the condition of their dearest relations, and by the terror of being imprisoned as they

were.

"As for myself, I went all the first part of the time freely about the streets, though not so freely as to run myself into apparent danger, except when they dug the great pit in the churchyard of our parish of Aldgate. A terrible pit it was, and I could not resist my curiosity to go and see it. As near as I may judge, it was about forty feet in length, and about fifteen or sixteen feet broad, and, at the time I first looked at it, about nine feet deep; but it was said they dug it near twenty feet deep afterwards in one part of it, till they could go no deeper for the water, for they had, it seems, dug several large pits before this; for though the plague was long a-coming to our parish, yet when it did come, there was no parish in or about London where it raged with such violence as in the two parishes of Aldgate and Whitechapel.

66 I say they had dug several pits in another ground when the distemper began to spread in our parish, and especially when the dead-carts began to go about, which was not in our parish till the beginning of August. Into these pits they had put perhaps fifty or sixty bodies each; then they made larger holes, wherein they buried all that the cart brought in a week, which, by the middle to the end of August, came to from two hundred to four hundred a-week; and they could not well dig them larger, because of the order of the magistrates confining them to leave no bodies within six feet of the surface; and the water coming on at about seventeen or eighteen feet, they could not well, I say, put more in one pit; but now, at the beginning of Septemberthe plague raging in a dreadful manner, and the number of burials in our parish increasing to more than was ever buried in any parish about London of no larger extent they ordered this dreadful gulf to be dug; for such it was, rather than a pit.

"They had supposed this pit would have supplied them for a month or more when they dug it; and some blamed the churchwardens for suffering such a frightful thing, telling them that