by Daniel Defoe
above.
It is true, masters of families were bound by the order to give noticeto the examiner of the place wherein he lived, within two hours after heshould discover it, of any person being sick in his house, that is tosay, having signs of the infection; but they found so many ways to evadethis, and excuse their negligence, that they seldom gave that noticetill they had taken measures to have every one escape out of the housewho had a mind to escape, whether they were sick or sound. And whilethis was so, it was easy to see that the shutting up of houses was noway to be depended upon as a sufficient method for putting a stop to theinfection, because, as I have said elsewhere, many of those that so wentout of those infected houses had the plague really upon them, thoughthey might really think themselves sound; and some of these were thepeople that walked the streets till they fell down dead: not that theywere suddenly struck with the distemper, as with a bullet that killedwith the stroke, but that they really had the infection in their bloodlong before, only that, as it preyed secretly on their vitals, itappeared not till it seized the heart with a mortal power, and thepatient died in a moment, as with a sudden fainting or an apoplecticfit.
I know that some, even of our physicians, thought for a time that thosepeople that so died in the streets were seized but that moment theyfell, as if they had been touched by a stroke from heaven, as men arekilled by a flash of lightning; but they found reason to alter theiropinion afterward, for, upon examining the bodies of such after theywere dead, they always either had tokens upon them, or other evidentproofs of the distemper having been longer upon them than they hadotherwise expected.
This often was the reason that, as I have said, we that were examinerswere not able to come at the knowledge of the infection being enteredinto a house till it was too late to shut it up, and sometimes not tillthe people that were left were all dead. In Petticoat Lane two housestogether were infected, and several people sick; but the distemper wasso well concealed, the examiner, who was my neighbor, got no knowledgeof it till notice was sent him that the people were all dead, and thatthe carts should call there to fetch them away. The two heads of thefamilies concerted their measures, and so ordered their matters as that,when the examiner was in the neighborhood, they appeared generally at atime, and answered, that is, lied for one another, or got some of theneighborhood to say they were all in health, and perhaps knew no better;till, death making it impossible to keep it any longer as a secret, thedead carts were called in the night to both the houses, and so it becamepublic. But when the examiner ordered the constable to shut up thehouses, there was nobody left in them but three people (two in onehouse, and one in the other), just dying, and a nurse in each house, whoacknowledged that they had buried five before, that the houses had beeninfected nine or ten days, and that for all the rest of the twofamilies, which were many, they were gone, some sick, some well, or,whether sick or well, could not be known.
In like manner, at another house in the same lane, a man, having hisfamily infected, but very unwilling to be shut up, when he could concealit no longer, shut up himself; that is to say, he set the great redcross upon the door, with the words, "LORD, HAVE MERCY UPON US!" and sodeluded the examiner, who supposed it had been done by the constable, byorder of the other examiner (for there were two examiners to everydistrict or precinct). By this means he had free egress and regress intohis house again and out of it, as he pleased, notwithstanding it wasinfected, till at length his stratagem was found out, and then he, withthe sound part of his family and servants, made off and escaped; so theywere not shut up at all.
These things made it very hard, if not impossible, as I have said, toprevent the spreading of an infection by the shutting up of houses,unless the people would think the shutting up of their houses nogrievance, and be so willing to have it done as that they would givenotice duly and faithfully to the magistrates of their being infected,as soon as it was known by themselves; but as that cannot be expectedfrom them, and the examiners cannot be supposed, as above, to go intotheir houses to visit and search, all the good of shutting up houseswill be defeated, and few houses will be shut up in time, except thoseof the poor, who cannot conceal it, and of some people who will bediscovered by the terror and consternation which the thing put theminto.
I got myself discharged of the dangerous office I was in as soon as Icould get another admitted, whom I had obtained for a little money toaccept of it; and so, instead of serving the two months, which wasdirected, I was not above three weeks in it; and a great while too,considering it was in the month of August, at which time the distemperbegan to rage with great violence at our end of the town.
In the execution of this office, I could not refrain speaking my opinionamong my neighbors as to the shutting up the people in their houses, inwhich we saw most evidently the severities that were used, thoughgrievous in themselves, had also this particular objection against them;namely, that they did not answer the end, as I have said, but that thedistempered people went day by day about the streets. And it was ourunited opinion that a method to have removed the sound from the sick, incase of a particular house being visited, would have been much morereasonable on many accounts, leaving nobody with the sick persons butsuch as should, on such occasions, request to stay, and declarethemselves content to be shut up with them.
Our scheme for removing those that were sound from those that were sickwas only in such houses as were infected; and confining the sick was noconfinement: those that could not stir would not complain while theywere in their senses, and while they had the power of judging. Indeed,when they came to be delirious and light-headed, then they would cry outof[243] the cruelty of being confined; but, for the removal of thosethat were well, we thought it highly reasonable and just, for their ownsakes, they should be removed from the sick, and that, for otherpeople's safety, they should keep retired for a while, to see that theywere sound, and might not infect others; and we thought twenty or thirtydays enough for this.
Now, certainly, if houses had been provided on purpose for those thatwere sound, to perform this demiquarantine in, they would have much lessreason to think themselves injured in such a restraint than in beingconfined with infected people in the houses where they lived.
It is here, however, to be observed, that after the funerals became somany that people could not toll the bell, mourn or weep, or wear blackfor one another, as they did before, no, nor so much as make coffins forthose that died, so, after a while, the fury of the infection appearedto be so increased, that, in short, they shut up no houses at all. Itseemed enough that all the remedies of that kind had been used till theywere found fruitless, and that the plague spread itself with anirresistible fury; so that, as the fire the succeeding year spreaditself and burnt with such violence that the citizens in despair gaveover their endeavors to extinguish it, so in the plague it came at lastto such violence, that the people sat still looking at one another, andseemed quite abandoned to despair. Whole streets seemed to be desolated,and not to be shut up only, but to be emptied of their inhabitants:doors were left open, windows stood shattering with the wind in emptyhouses, for want of people to shut them. In a word, people began to giveup themselves to their fears, and to think that all regulations andmethods were in vain, and that there was nothing to be hoped for but anuniversal desolation. And it was even in the height of this generaldespair that it pleased God to stay his hand, and to slacken the fury ofthe contagion in such a manner as was even surprising, like itsbeginning, and demonstrated it to be his own particular hand; and thatabove, if not without the agency of means, as I shall take notice of inits proper place.
But I must still speak of the plague as in its height, raging even todesolation, and the people under the most dreadful consternation, even,as I have said, to despair. It is hardly credible to what excesses thepassions of men carried them in this extremity of the distemper; andthis part, I think, was as moving as the rest. What could affect a manin his full power of reflection, and what could make deeper impressionson the soul, than to see a man almost naked
, and got out of his house orperhaps out of his bed into the street, come out of Harrow Alley, apopulous conjunction or collection of alleys, courts, and passages, inthe Butcher Row in Whitechapel,--I say, what could be more affectingthan to see this poor man come out into the open street, run, dancingand singing, and making a thousand antic gestures, with five or sixwomen and children running after him, crying and calling upon him forthe Lord's sake to come back, and entreating the help of others to bringhim back, but all in vain, nobody daring to lay a hand upon him, or tocome near him?
This was a most grievous and afflicting thing to me, who saw it all frommy own windows; for all this while the poor afflicted man was, as Iobserved it, even then in the utmost agony of pain, having, as theysaid, two swellings upon him, which could not be brought to break or tosuppurate; but by laying strong caustics on them the surgeons had, itseems, hopes to break them, which caustics were then upon him, burninghis flesh as with a
