Passing through Tokenhouse Yard,in Lothbury,of a sudden a casement violently opened just over my head,and a woman gave three frightful screeches,and then cried,'Oh!death,death,death!'in a most inimitable tone,and which struck me with horror and a chillness in my very blood.There was nobody to be seen in the whole street,neither did any other window open.for people had no curiosity now in any case,nor could anybody help one another,so I went on to pass into Bell Alley.
Just in Bell Alley,on the right hand of the passage,there was a more terrible cry than that,though it was not so directed out at the window;but the whole family was in a terrible fright,and I could hear women and children run screaming about the rooms like distracted,when a garret-window opened and somebody from a window on the other side the alley called and asked,'What is the matter?'upon which,from the first window,it was answered,'Oh Lord,my old master has hanged himself!'The other asked again,'Is he quite dead?'and the first answered,'Ay,ay,quite dead;quite dead and cold!'This person was a merchant and a deputy alderman,and very rich.I care not to mention the name,though I knew his name too,but that would be an hardship to the family,which is now flourishing again.
But this is but one;it is scarce credible what dreadful cases happened in particular families every day.People in the rage of the distemper,or in the torment of their swellings,which was indeed intolerable,running out of their own government,raving and distracted,and oftentimes laying violent hands upon themselves,throwing themselves out at their windows,shooting themselves.,;,&c.;mothers murdering their own children in their lunacy,some dying of mere grief as a passion,some of mere fright and surprise without any infection at all,others frighted into idiotism and foolish distractions,some into despair and lunacy,others into melancholy madness.
The pain of the swelling was in particular very violent,and to some intolerable;the physicians and surgeons may be said to have tortured many poor creatures even to death.The swellings in some grew hard,and they applied violent drawing-plaisters or poultices to break them,and if these did not do they cut and scarified them in a terrible manner.In some those swellings were made hard partly by the force of the distemper and partly by their being too violently drawn,and were so hard that no instrument could cut them,and then they burnt them with caustics,so that many died raving mad with the torment,and some in the very operation.In these distresses,some,for want of help to hold them down in their beds,or to look to them,laid hands upon themselves as above.Some broke out into the streets,perhaps naked,and would run directly down to the river if they were not stopped by the watchman or other officers,and plunge themselves into the water wherever they found it.
It often pierced my very soul to hear the groans and cries of those who were thus tormented,but of the two this was counted the most promising particular in the whole infection,for if these swellings could be brought to a head,and to break and run,or,as the surgeons call it,to digest,the patient generally recovered;whereas those who,like the gentlewoman's daughter,were struck with death at the beginning,and had the tokens come out upon them,often went about indifferent easy till a little before they died,and some till the moment they dropped down,as in apoplexies and epilepsies is often the case.
Such would be taken suddenly very sick,and would run to a bench or bulk,or any convenient place that offered itself,or to their own houses if possible,as I mentioned before,and there sit down,grow faint,and die.This kind of dying was much the same as it was with those who die of common mortifications,who die swooning,and,as it were,go away in a dream.Such as died thus had very little notice of their being infected at all till the gangrene was spread through their whole body;nor could physicians themselves know certainly how it was with them till they opened their breasts or other parts of their body and saw the tokens.
We had at this time a great many frightful stories told us of nurses and watchmen who looked after the dying people;that is to say,hired nurses who attended infected people,using them barbarously,starving them,smothering them,or by other wicked means hastening their end,that is to say,murdering of them;and watchmen,being set to guard houses that were shut up when there has been but one person left,and perhaps that one lying sick,that they have broke in and murdered that body,and immediately thrown them out into the dead-cart!And so they have gone scarce cold to the grave.
I cannot say but that some such murders were committed,and Ithink two were sent to prison for it,but died before they could be tried;and I have heard that three others,at several times,were excused for murders of that kind;but I must say I believe nothing of its being so common a crime as some have since been pleased to say,nor did it seem to be so rational where the people were brought so low as not to be able to help themselves,for such seldom recovered,and there was no temptation to commit a murder,at least none equal to the fact,where they were sure persons would die in so short a time,and could not live.
That there were a great many robberies and wicked practices committed even in this dreadful time I do not deny.The power of avarice was so strong in some that they would run any hazard to steal and to plunder;and particularly in houses where all the families or inhabitants have been dead and carried out,they would break in at all hazards,and without regard to the danger of infection,take even the clothes off the dead bodies and the bed-clothes from others where they lay dead.