Of All Diseases.   Of the Plague. 
Aug. 8 to Aug. 15          5,319            3,880
Aug. 15 to Aug. 22         5,668            4,237
Aug. 22 to Aug. 29         7,496            6,102
Aug. 29 to Sept. 5         8,252            6,988
Sept. 5 to Sept. 12        7,690            6,544
Sept. 12 to Sept. 19       8,297            7,165
Sept. 19 to Sept. 30       6,400            5,533
Sept. 27 to Oct. 3         5,728            4,929
Oct. 3 to Oct. 10          5,068            4,227
------           ------
59,918           49,605

So that the gross of the people were carried off in these two months; for, as the whole number which was brought in to die of the plague was but 68,590, here is[154] 50,000 of them, within a trifle, in two months:  I say 50,000, because as there wants 395 in the number above, so there wants two days of two months in the account of time.[155]

Now, when I say that the parish officers did not give in a full account, or were not to be depended upon for their account, let any one but consider how men could be exact in such a time of dreadful distress, and when many of them were taken sick themselves, and perhaps died in the very time when their accounts were to be given in (I mean the parish clerks, besides inferior officers):  for though these poor men ventured at all hazards, yet they were far from being exempt from the common calamity, especially if it be true that the parish of Stepney had within the year one hundred and sixteen sextons, gravediggers, and their assistants; that is to say, bearers, bellmen, and drivers of carts for carrying off the dead bodies.

Indeed, the work was not of such a nature as to allow them leisure to take an exact tale[156] of the dead bodies, which were all huddled together in the dark into a pit; which pit, or trench, no man could come nigh but at the utmost peril.  I have observed often that in the parishes of Aldgate, Cripplegate, Whitechapel, and Stepney, there were five, six, seven, and eight hundred in a week in the bills; whereas, if we may believe the opinion of those that lived in the city all the time, as well as I, there died sometimes two thousand a week in those parishes.  And I saw it under the hand of one that made as strict an examination as he could, that there really died a hundred thousand people of the plague in it that one year; whereas, in the bills, the article of the plague was but 68,590.

If I may be allowed to give my opinion, by what I saw with my eyes, and heard from other people that were eyewitnesses, I do verily believe the same; viz., that there died at least a hundred thousand of the plague only, besides other distempers, and besides those which died in the fields and highways and secret places, out of the compass[157] of the communication, as it was called, and who were not put down in the bills, though they really belonged to the body of the inhabitants.  It was known to us all that abundance of poor despairing creatures who had the distemper upon them, and were grown stupid or melancholy by their misery (as many were), wandered away into the fields and woods, and into secret uncouth[158] places, almost anywhere, to creep into a bush or hedge, and die.