otherwise expected.
This often was the reason that, as I have said, we that were
examiners were not able to come at the knowledge of the infection
being entered into a house till it was too late to shut it up, and
sometimes not till the people that were left were all dead. In Petticoat
Lane two houses together were infected, and several people sick; but
the distemper was so well concealed, the examiner, who was my
neighbour, got no knowledge of it till notice was sent him that the
people were all dead, and that the carts should call there to fetch them
away. The two heads of the families concerted their measures, and so
ordered their matters as that when the examiner was in the
neighbourhood they appeared generally at a time, and answered, that
is, lied, for one another, or got some of the neighbourhood 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, the dead-carts were called
in the night to both the houses t and so it became public. But when
the examiner ordered the constable to shut up the houses there was
nobody left in them but three people, two in one house and one in the
other, just dying, and a nurse in each house who acknowledged that
they had buried five before, that the houses had been infected nine or
ten days, and that for all the rest of the two families, 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 his
family infected but very unwilling to be shut up, when he could
conceal it no longer, shut up himself; that is to say, he set the great red
cross upon his door with the words, ‘Lord have mercy upon us’, and so
deluded the examiner, who supposed it had been done by the
constable by order of the other examiner, for there were two
examiners to every district or precinct. By this means he had free
egress and regress into his house again. and out of it, as he pleased,
notwithstanding it was infected, till at length his stratagem was found
out; and then he, with the sound part of his servants and family, made
off and escaped, so they were not shut up at all.
These things made it very hard, if not impossible, as I have said, to
prevent the spreading of an infection by the shutting up of houses –
unless the people would think the shutting of their houses no
grievance, and be so willing to have it done as that they would give
notice duly and faithfully to the magistrates of their being infected as
soon as it was known by themselves; but as that cannot be expected
from them, and the examiners cannot be supposed, as above, to go
into their houses to visit and search, all the good of shutting up houses
will be defeated, and few houses will be shut up in time, except those
of the poor, who cannot conceal it, and of some people who will be
discovered by the terror and consternation which the things put them into.
I got myself discharged of the dangerous office I was in as soon as I
could get another admitted, whom I had obtained for a little money to
accept of it; and so, instead of serving the two months, which was
directed, 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
distemper began to rage with great violence at our end of the town.
In the execution of this office I could not refrain speaking my
opinion among my neighbours as to this shutting up the people in their
houses; in which we saw most evidently the severities that were used,
though grievous in themselves, had also this particular objection
against them: namely, that they did not answer the end, as I have said,
but that the distempered people went day by day about the streets; and