by Daniel Defoe
side,and those bills were not of credit enough, at least with me, to supportan hypothesis, or determine a question of such importance as this; forit was our received opinion at that time, and I believe upon very goodgrounds, that the fraud lay in the parish officers, searchers, andpersons appointed to give account of the dead, and what diseases theydied of; and as people were very loath at first to have the neighborsbelieve their houses were infected, so they gave money to procure, orotherwise procured, the dead persons to be returned as dying of otherdistempers; and this I know was practiced afterwards in many places, Ibelieve I might say in all places where the distemper came, as will beseen by the vast increase of the numbers placed in the weekly billsunder other articles[278] of diseases during the time of the infection.For example, in the months of July and August, when the plague wascoming on to its highest pitch, it was very ordinary to have from athousand to twelve hundred, nay, to almost fifteen hundred, a week, ofother distempers. Not that the numbers of those distempers were reallyincreased to such a degree; but the great number of families and houseswhere really the infection was, obtained the favor to have their dead bereturned of other distempers, to prevent the shutting up their houses.For example:--
_Dead of other Diseases besides the Plague._
From the 18th to the 25th of July 942 To the 1st of August 1,004 To the 8th 1,213 To the 15th 1,439 To the 22d 1,331 To the 29th 1,394 To the 5th of September 1,264 To the 12th 1,056 To the 19th 1,132 To the 26th 927
Now, it was not doubted but the greatest part of these, or a great partof them, were dead of the plague; but the officers were prevailed withto return them as above, and the numbers of some particular articles ofdistempers discovered is as follows:--
Aug. 1-8. Aug. 8-15. Aug. 15-22. Aug. 22-29.
Fever 314 353 348 383 Spotted fever 174 190 166 165 Surfeit 85 87 74 99 Teeth 90 113 111 133 --- --- --- --- 663 743 699 780
Aug. 29-Sept. 5. Sept. 5-12. Sept. 12-19. Sept. 19-26.
Fever 364 332 309 268 Spotted Fever 157 97 101 65 Surfeit 68 45 49 36 Teeth 138 128 121 112 --- --- --- --- 727 602 580 481
There were several other articles which bore a proportion to these, andwhich it is easy to perceive were increased on the same account; asaged,[279] consumptions, vomitings, imposthumes,[280] gripes, and thelike, many of which were not doubted to be infected people; but as itwas of the utmost consequence to families not to be known to beinfected, if it was possible to avoid it, so they took all the measuresthey could to have it not believed, and if any died in their houses, toget them returned to the examiners, and by the searchers, as having diedof other distempers.
This, I say, will account for the long interval which, as I have said,was between the dying of the first persons that were returned in thebills to be dead of the plague, and the time when the distemper spreadopenly, and could not be concealed.
Besides, the weekly bills themselves at that time evidently discoverthis truth; for while there was no mention of the plague, and noincrease after it had been mentioned, yet it was apparent that there wasan increase of those distempers which bordered nearest upon it. Forexample, there were eight, twelve, seventeen, of the spotted fever in aweek when there were none or but very few of the plague; whereas before,one, three, or four were the ordinary weekly numbers of that distemper.Likewise, as I observed before, the burials increased weekly in thatparticular parish and the parishes adjacent, more than in any otherparish, although there were none set down of the plague; all which tellus that the infection was handed on, and the succession of the distemperreally preserved, though it seemed to us at that time to be ceased, andto come again in a manner surprising.
It might be, also, that the infection might remain in other parts of thesame parcel of goods which at first it came in, and which might not be,perhaps, opened, or at least not fully, or in the clothes of the firstinfected person; for I cannot think that anybody could be seized withthe contagion in a fatal and mortal degree for nine weeks together, andsupport his state of health so well as even not to discover it tothemselves:[281] yet, if it were so, the argument is the stronger infavor of what I am saying, namely, that the infection is retained inbodies apparently well, and conveyed from them to those they conversewith, while it is known to neither the one nor the other.
Great were the confusions at that time upon this very account; and whenpeople began to be convinced that the infection was received in thissurprising manner from persons apparently well, they began to beexceeding shy and jealous of every one that came near them. Once, on apublic day, whether a sabbath day or not I do not remember, in AldgateChurch, in a pew full of people, on a sudden one fancied she smelt anill smell. Immediately she fancies the plague was in the pew, whispersher notion or suspicion to the next, then rises and goes out of the pew.It immediately took with the next, and so with them all; and every oneof them, and of the two or three adjoining pews, got up and went out ofthe church, nobody knowing what it was offended them, or from whom.
This immediately filled everybody's mouths with one preparation orother, such as the old women directed, and some, perhaps, as physiciansdirected, in order to prevent infection by the breath of others;insomuch, that if we came to go into a church when it was anything fullof people, there would be such a mixture of smells at the entrance, thatit was much more strong, though perhaps not so wholesome, than if youwere going into an apothecary's or druggist's shop: in a word, the wholechurch was like a smelling bottle. In one corner it was all perfumes; inanother, aromatics,[282] balsamics,[283] and a variety of drugs andherbs; in another, salts and spirits, as every one was furnished fortheir own preservation. Yet I observed that after people were possessed,as I have said, with the belief, or rather assurance, of the infectionbeing thus carried on by persons apparently in health, the churches andmeetinghouses were much thinner of people than at other times, beforethat, they used to be; for this is to be said of the people of London,that, during the whole time of the pestilence, the churches or meetingswere never wholly shut up, nor did the people decline coming out to thepublic worship of God, except only in some parishes, when the violenceof the distemper was more particularly in that parish at that time, andeven then[284] no longer than it[285] continued to be so.
Indeed, nothing was more strange than to see with what courage thepeople went to the public service of God, even at that time when theywere afraid to stir out of their own houses upon any other occasion(this I mean before the time of desperation which I have mentionedalready). This was a proof of the exceeding populousness of the city atthe time of the infection, notwithstanding the great numbers that weregone into the country at the first alarm, and that fled out into theforests and woods when they were further terrified with theextraordinary increase of it. For when we came to see the crowds andthrongs of people which appeared on the sabbath days at the churches,and especially in those parts of the town where the plague was abated,or where it was not yet come to its height, it was amazing. But of thisI shall speak again presently. I return, in the mean time, to thearticle of infecting one another at first. Before people came to rightnotions of the infection and of infecting one another, people were onlyshy of those that were really sick. A man with a cap upon his head, orwith cloths round his neck (which was the case of those that hadswellings there),--such was indeed frightful; but when we saw agentleman dre
ssed, with his band[286] on, and his gloves in his hand,his hat upon his head, and his hair combed,--of such we had not theleast apprehensions; and people conversed a great while freely,especially with their neighbors and such as they knew. But when thephysicians assured us that the danger was as well from the sound (thatis, the seemingly sound) as the sick, and that those people that thoughtthemselves entirely free were oftentimes the most fatal; and that itcame to be generally understood that people were sensible of it, and ofthe reason of it,--then, I say, they began to be jealous of everybody;and a vast number of people locked themselves up, so as not to comeabroad into any company at all, nor suffer any that had been abroad inpromiscuous company to come into their houses, or near them (at leastnot so near them as to be within the reach of their breath, or of anysmell from them); and when they were obliged to converse at a distancewith strangers, they would always have preservatives in their mouths andabout their clothes, to repel and keep off the