第70章 Part 5(16)

By this means bread was always to be had in plenty,and as cheap as usual,as I said above;and provisions were never wanting in the markets,even to such a degree that I often wondered at it,and reproached myself with being so timorous and cautious in stirring abroad,when the country people came freely and boldly to market,as if there had been no manner of infection in the city,or danger of catching it.

It.was indeed one admirable piece of conduct in the said magistrates that the streets were kept constantly dear and free from all manner of frightful objects,dead bodies,or any such things as were indecent or unpleasant -unless where anybody fell down suddenly or died in the streets,as I have said above;and these were generally covered with some cloth or blanket,or removed into the next churchyard till night.All the needful works that carried terror with them,that were both dismal and dangerous,were done in the night;if any diseased bodies were removed,or dead bodies buried,or infected clothes burnt,it was done in the night;and all the bodies which were thrown into the great pits in the several churchyards or burying-grounds,as has.been observed,were so removed in the night,and everything was covered and closed before day.So that in the daytime there was not the least signal of the calamity to be seen or heard of,except what was to be observed from the emptiness of the streets,and sometimes from the passionate outcries and lamentations of the people,out at their windows,and from the numbers of houses and shops shut up.

Nor was the silence and emptiness of the streets so much in the city as in the out-parts,except just at one particular time when,as I have mentioned,the plague came east and spread over all the city.It was indeed a merciful disposition of God,that as the plague began at one end of the town first (as has been observed at large)so it proceeded progressively to other parts,and did not come on this way,or eastward,till it had spent its fury in the West part of the town;and so,as it came on one way,it abated another.For example,it began at St Giles's and the Westminster end of the town,and it was in its height in all that part by about the middle of July,viz.,in St Giles-in-the-Fields,St Andrew's,Holborn,St Clement Danes,St Martin-in-the-Fields,and in Westminster.The latter end of July it decreased in those parishes;and coming east,it increased prodigiously in Cripplegate,St Sepulcher's,St James's,Clarkenwell,and St Bride's and Aldersgate.

While it was in all these parishes,the city and all the parishes of the Southwark side of the water and all Stepney,Whitechappel,Aldgate,Wapping,and Ratcliff,were very little touched;so that people went about their business unconcerned,carried on their trades,kept open their shops,and conversed freely with one another in all the city,the east and north-east suburbs,and in Southwark,almost as if the plague had not been among us.

Even when the north and north-west suburbs were fully infected,viz.,Cripplegate,Clarkenwell,Bishopsgate,and Shoreditch,yet still all the rest were tolerably well.For example from 25th July to 1st August the bill stood thus of all diseases:-St Giles,Cripplegate 554St Sepulchers 250Clarkenwell 103Bishopsgate 116Shoreditch 110Stepney parish 127Aldgate 92Whitechappel 104All the ninety-seven parishes within the walls 228All the parishes in Southwark 205-----

Total 1889So that,in short,there died more that week in the two parishes of Cripplegate and St Sepulcher by forty-eight than in all the city,all the east suburbs,and all the Southwark parishes put together.This caused the reputation of the city's health to continue all over England -and especially in the counties and markets adjacent,from whence our supply of provisions chiefly came even much longer than that health itself continued;for when the people came into the streets from the country by Shoreditch and Bishopsgate,or by Old Street and Smithfield,they would see the out-streets empty and the houses and shops shut,and the few people that were stirring there walk in the middle of the streets.But when they came within the city,there things looked better,and the markets and shops were open,and the people walking about the streets as usual,though not quite so many;and this continued till the latter end of August and the beginning of September.

But then the case altered quite;the distemper abated in the west and north-west parishes,and the weight of the infection lay on the city and the eastern suburbs,and the Southwark side,and this in a frightful manner.

Then,indeed,the city began to look dismal,shops to be shut,and the streets desolate.In the High Street,indeed,necessity made people stir abroad on many occasions;and there would be in the middle of the day a pretty many people,but in the mornings and evenings scarce any to be seen,even there,no,not in Cornhill and Cheapside.

These observations of mine were abundantly confirmed by the weekly bills of mortality for those weeks,an abstract of which,as they respect the parishes which.I have mentioned and as they make the calculations I speak of very evident,take as follows.

The weekly bill,which makes out this decrease of the burials in the west and north side of the city,stands thus --From the 12th of September to the 19th -

St Giles,Cripplegate 456St Giles-in-the-Fields 140Clarkenwell 77St Sepulcher 214St Leonard,Shoreditch 183Stepney parish 716Aldgate 623Whitechappel 532In the ninety-seven parishes within the walls 1493In the eight parishes on Southwark side 1636-----