"JS
8 the Conservative *
This generation
WHAT A PKVTI-
hns seen nothing
LENUK IS 1,1 KK.
like a widespread
visitntion of nil infectious rtison.se , such
as we read of in times past ; there are
cities in our Southern states which have
suffered at times almost to the limit
from yellow fever , but this contagion it
is always found possible to confine tonne
locality , thanks to modern methods ,
aided in time by the arrival of frost.
By far the larger pnrt of the country ,
however , is ignornnt of nny epidemic
save the grip , or occasional outbreaks of
certain children's maladies ; and an im
pression is unconsciously prevalent that
the age of serious pestilences is past , and
that wo are safe , without nny effort to
mane ourselves so , ironi any suca
troubles as people have had at other
times and places. And yet it is idle to
deny that our country , and possibly the
world at large , owing to the growing in
difference to the only preventive at pres
ent known , is now directly confronted
with a visitation of small-pox ; it has
sprang up in a hundred widely-scattered
places , where it gains n foothold it re
mains , and no mensures that nny auth
orities have tluis far taken seem to be
able either to eradicate it or prevent its
transmission. It is quite possible thnt
we nre just at the beginning of it , and
that the country stands at the threshold
of n serious battle with this disease ,
against which neither frost nor any cli
matic influence has any power.
In this state of '
things , De Foe's ac
count of the pestilence which visited
London in 1G65 becomes of interest.
This account is
commonly classed as a
work of fiction , yet it would be hard to
find anything in literature more plausi
ble , or with a better right to be consid
ered ns nuuiencic. xuougn VQ * oe was
only a child in that year , the events of
the plague must have formed the stnple
of his elders'
conversation for many
yenrs thereafter , and we may think
what an impression they would make on
a mind so painstaking , EO keen for effec-
Hve details , ns De Foe's.
'
We give a few pictures :
The Look of the City.
The fnce of London was now indeed
strangely altered I mean the whole
mass of buildings , city , liberties , suburbs -
urbs , Westminster , Southwark , and
altogether ; for as to the particular part
called the city , or within the walls , that
wns not yet much infected ; but in the
whole , the fnce of things. 1 sny , was
much altered ; sorrow and sadness sat
' upon every face ; and though some parts
were not yet overwhelmed , yet all
looked deeply concerned ; and as we saw
it apparently coming on , so every one
looked on himself and his family as in
the utmost danger. Were it possible to
represent those times exactly to those
who did not see them , nud give the
render duo ideas of the horror that
everywhere presented itself , it must
moke just impressions upon their mind * ,
and fill them wi'h ' surprise. London
might well bo said to be all in tears ; the
mourners did not go about the streets ,
indeed , for nobody put on black , or
made a formal dress of mourning for
their nearest friends : but the voice of
mourning was truly henrd in the streets ;
the shrieks of women and children at
the windows and doors of their houses ,
where their dearest relations were per-
laps dying , or just dead , were so fre
quent to bo heard , as wo passed the
streets , that it was enough to pierce the
stoutest heart in the world to hear
them. Tears and lamentations were
seen almost in every house , especially in
, ho first nnrt , nf t.lin visitation : fnr tn-
wards the latter end , men's hearts were
linrdened , and death was so always
before their eyes , that they did not so
much concern themselves for the loss of
their friends , expecting that themselves
should be summoned the next hour.
The Closing : of Houses' .
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 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
that hod looked out of a window , and
asked what was the matter.
A watchman , it seems , hnd been em
ployed to keep his post nt 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 ho told his story , and the day watch
man , had been there one day , and was
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 the
Monday afternoon , when he heard great
crying and screaming in the house ,
which , ns he supposed , wns occnsioned
by some of the fnmily dying just nt that
time : it seems the night before , the
dead cart , as it was called , had been
stopped there , and a servant maid hod
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 car
ried her away.
The watchman had knocked at the
door , it seems , when he heard that iioiso
and crying , ns above , and nobody an
swered a great while ; but at last one
looked out , and pnid , with nn angry
quick tone , and yet a kind of crying
voice , or the voice of one that was cry
ing : "What d'ye want , thnt ye make
such a knocking ? " Ho answered , "I
am the watchman : how do you do ?
what is the matter ? " The person ou
swered : "What is that to you ? Stop
the dend cnrt. " This , it seems , was
about ouo o'clock : soon nfter , ns the
fellow snid , he stopped the dend cnrt ,
and then knocked again , but nobody
answered : he continued knocking , and
then 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 stny no longer , and drove
away.
The watchman knew not what to
make of all this , so ho let them alone
till the morning-man , or day watchman ,
as they called him , came to relieve him ,
crivincr him an account of the narticu-
! ars ; they knocked at the door a great
while , but nobody answered ; nnd they
observed thnt the window , or casement ,
at which the person had looked out who
liad answered before , continued open ,
being up two pairs of stairs.
Upon this , the two men , to satisfy
their curiosity , got a long ladder , and
one of them went up to the window ,
and looked into the room , where he saw
a woman lying dead upon the floor in a
dismal manner , having no clothes on
her but her shift : but though he called
nloud , nnd putting in his long stnff ,
knocked hnrd on the floor , yet nobody
stirred -answered ; neither could he
hear any noise in the house.
He came down again upon this , and
acquainted his fellow , who went up
also ; nnd finding it just so , they re
solved to ncquaint either the Lord
Mayor , or some other mngistrnte of it ,
but did not offer to go in at the window :
the magistrate , it seems , upon the in
formation of the two men , ordered the
house to be broken open , a constable
rmrl ntlipr norKmiR hmtirr nnnrmif-prl fr > VIA
present , that nothing might be plun
dered ; and accordingly it was so done ,
when nobody was found in the house
but that young woman , who , having
been infected , and past recovery , the rest
had left her to die by herself , and were
every one gone , having found some way
to delude the watchman , and get open
the door , or get out at some back door ,
or over the tops of the houses , so that he
knew nothing of it ; and ns to those
cries nnd shrieks which he heard , it was
supposed they were the passionate cries
of the family at the bitter parting ,
which , to be sure , it wns to them nil ,
this being the sister to the mistress of
the family. The man of the house , his
wife , several children nud servnnts being
nil gone nud fled , whether hick or sound ,
thnt I rould never lenrn ; nor , indeed ,
did I make much inquiry nfter it.
The Pits for the Dead.
I went nil the first part of the time
freely about the streets , though not so
freely as to run myself into apparent
danger , except when they dug the great
pit in the C'LuicliTnrd of our parish of
Aldgate ; a terrible pit it was , and I
could not resist my curiosity to go and
