St. L.[93] Shoreditch    64   The next week {  84   To     { 110
St. Bot.[94] Bishopsg.   65   prodigiously  { 105   Aug. 1 { 116
St. Giles’s Crippl.[95] 213   increased, as { 431   thus:   { 554
—–­                   —–­            —–­
342                   620            780

This shutting up of houses 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 pesthouse, was[96] released.

As I went along Houndsditch one morning, about eight o’clock, there was a great noise.  It is true, indeed, there was not much crowd, because the people were not very free to gather together, or to stay long together when they were there, nor did I stay long there; but the outcry was loud enough to prompt my curiosity, and I called to one, who looked out of a window, and asked what was the matter.

A watchman, it seems, had been employed to keep his post at the door of a house which was infected, or said to be infected, and was shut up.  He had been there all night, for two nights together, as he told his story, and the day watchman had been there one day, and was now come to relieve him.  All this while no noise had been heard in the house, no light had been seen, they called for nothing, sent him of no errands (which used to be the chief business of the watchmen), neither had they given him any disturbance, as he said, from Monday afternoon, when he heard a great crying and screaming in the house, which, as he supposed, was occasioned by some of the family dying just at that time.  It seems the night before, the “dead cart,” as it was called, had been stopped there, and a servant maid had been brought down to the door dead; and the “buriers” or “bearers,” as they were called, put her into the cart, wrapped only in a green rug, and carried her away.

The watchman had knocked at the door, it seems, when he heard that noise and crying, as above, and nobody answered a great while; but at last one looked out and said with an angry, quick tone, and yet a kind of crying voice, or a voice of one that was crying, “What d’ye want, that you make such a knocking?” He answered, “I am the watchman.  How do you do?  What is the matter?” The person answered, “What is that to you?  Stop the dead cart.”  This, it seems, was about one o’clock.  Soon after, as the fellow said, he stopped the dead cart, and then knocked again, but nobody answered; he continued knocking, and the bellman called out several times, “Bring out your dead;” but nobody answered, till the man that drove the cart, being called to other houses, would stay no longer, and drove away.