A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe [best novels to read for beginners txt] 📗

the streets were kept constantly clear 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, Clerkenwell, 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, Whitechapel, 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 northeast suburbs, and in Southwark, almost as if the plague had not been among us.

Even when the north and northwest suburbs were fully infected, viz., Cripplegate, Clerkenwell, 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 554 St. Sepulchers 250 Clerkenwell 103 Bishopsgate 116 Shoreditch 110 Stepney parish 127 Aldgate 92 Whitechapel 104 All the ninety-seven parishes within the walls 228 All the parishes in Southwark 205 Total 1,889

So 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 northwest 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 456 St. Giles-in-the-Fields 140 Clerkenwell 77 St. Sepulcher 214 St. Leonard, Shoreditch 183 Stepney parish 716 Aldgate 623 Whitechapel 532 In the ninety-seven parishes within the walls 1,493 In the eight parishes on Southwark side 1,636 Total 6,060

Here 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 the other part of the town. For example:⁠—

From the 19th of September to the 26th⁠— St. Giles, Cripplegate 227 St. Giles-in-the-Fields 119 Clerkenwell 76 St. Sepulcher 193 St. Leonard, Shoreditch 146 Stepney parish 616 Aldgate 496 Whitechapel 346 In the ninety-seven parishes within the walls 1,268 In the eight parishes on Southwark side 1,390 Total 4,927 From the 26th of September to the 3rd of October⁠— St. Giles, Cripplegate 196 St. Giles-in-the-Fields 95 Clerkenwell 48 St. Sepulcher 137 St. Leonard, Shoreditch 128 Stepney parish 674 Aldgate 372 Whitechapel 328 In the ninety-seven parishes within the walls 1,149 In the eight parishes on Southwark side 1,201 Total 4,328

And now the misery of the city and of