第71章 Part 5(17)

Total 6060Here is a strange change of things indeed,and a sad change it was;and had it held for two months more than it did,very few people would have been left alive.But then such,I say,was the merciful disposition of God that,when it was thus,the west and north part which had been so dreadfully visited at first,grew,as you see,much better;and as the people disappeared here,they began to look abroad again there;and the next week or two altered it still more;that is,more to the encouragement of tile other part of the town.For example:-From the 19th of September to the 26th -

St Giles,Cripplegate 277St Giles-in-the-Fields 119Clarkenwell 76St Sepulchers 193St Leonard,Shoreditch 146Stepney parish 616Aldgate 496Whitechappel 346In the ninety-seven parishes within the walls 1268In the eight parishes on Southwark side 1390-----

Total 4927From the 26th of September to the 3rd of October -St Giles,Cripplegate 196St Giles-in-the-Fields 95Clarkenwell 48St Sepulchers 137St Leonard,Shoreditch 128Stepney parish 674Aldgate 372Whitechappel 328In the ninety-seven parishes within the walls 1149In the eight parishes on Southwark side 1201-----

Total 4382And now the misery of the city and of the said east and south parts was complete indeed;for,as you see,the weight of the distemper lay upon those parts,that is to say,the city,the eight parishes over the river,with the parishes of Aldgate,Whitechappel,and Stepney;and this was the time that the bills came up to such a monstrous height as that I mentioned before,and that eight or nine,and,as I believe,ten or twelve thousand a week,died;for it is my settled opinion that they never could come at any just account of the numbers,for the reasons which I have given already.

Nay,one of the most eminent physicians,who has since published in Latin an account of those times,and of his observations says that in one week there died twelve thousand people,and that particularly there died four thousand in one night;though I do not remember that there ever was any such particular night so remarkably fatal as that such a number died in it.However,all this confirms what I have said above of the uncertainty of the bills of mortality,&c.,of which I shall say more hereafter.

And here let me take leave to enter again,though it may seem a repetition of circumstances,into a description of the miserable condition of the city itself,and of those parts where I lived at this particular time.The city and those other parts,notwithstanding the great numbers of people that were gone into the country,was vastly full of people;and perhaps the fuller because people had for a long time a strong belief that the plague would not come into the city,nor into Southwark,no,nor into Wapping or Ratcliff at all;nay,such was the assurance of the people on that head that many removed from the suburbs on the west and north sides,into those eastern and south sides as for safety;and,as I verily believe,carried the plague amongst them there perhaps sooner than they would otherwise have had it.

Here also I ought to leave a further remark for the use of posterity,concerning the manner of people's infecting one another;namely,that it was not the sick people only from whom the plague was immediately received by others that were sound,but the well.To explain myself:by the sick people I mean those who were known to be sick,had taken their beds,had been under cure,or had swellings and tumours upon them,and the like;these everybody could beware of;they were either in their beds or in such condition as could not be concealed.

By the well I mean such as had received the contagion,and had it really upon them,and in their blood,yet did not show the consequences of it in their countenances:nay,even were not sensible of it themselves,as many were not for several days.These breathed death in every place,and upon everybody who came near them;nay,their very clothes retained the infection,their hands would infect the things they touched,especially if they were warm and sweaty,and they were generally apt to sweat too.

Now it was impossible to know these people,nor did they sometimes,as I have said,know themselves to be infected.These were the people that so often dropped down and fainted in the streets;for oftentimes they would go about the streets to the last,till on a sudden they would sweat,grow faint,sit down at a door and die.It is true,finding themselves thus,they would struggle hard to get home to their own doors,or at other times would be just able to go into their houses and die instantly;other times they would go about till they had the very tokens come out upon them,and yet not know it,and would die in an hour or two after they came home,but be well as long as they were abroad.These were the dangerous people;these were the people of whom the well people ought to have been afraid;but then,on the other side,it was impossible to know them.

And this is the reason why it is impossible in a visitation to prevent the spreading of the plague by the utmost human vigilance:viz.,that it is impossible to know the infected people from the sound,or that the infected people should perfectly know themselves.I knew a man who conversed freely in London all the season of the plague in 1665,and kept about him an antidote or cordial on purpose to take when he thought himself in any danger,and he had such a rule to know or have warning of the danger by as indeed I never met with before or since.