Читать книгу Cherry & Violet: A Tale of the Great Plague онлайн

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“It is true, when the Infection came to such a Height as I have now mentioned, there were very few Physicians which car’d to stir abroad to sick Houses, and very many of the most eminent of the Faculty were dead as well as the Surgeons also; for now it was indeed a dismal time, and for about a month together, not taking any Notice of the Bills of Mortality, I believe there did not die less than 1500 or 1700 a-Day, one Day with another.

“One of the worst Days we had in the whole Time, as I thought, was in the Beginning of September, when indeed good People began to think that God was resolved to make a full End of the People in this miserable City. This was at that Time when the Plague was fully come into the Eastern Parishes: the Parish of Algate, if I may give my Opinion, buried above a thousand a Week for two Weeks, though the Bills did not say so many; but it surrounded me at so dismal a rate, that there was not a House in twenty uninfected; in the Minories, in Houndsditch, and in those Parts of Algate about the Butcher-Row, and the Alleys over against me, I say in those places Death reigned in every Corner. White-Chappel Parish was in the same Condition, and tho’ much less than the Parish I liv’d in; yet buried near 600 a Week by the Bills; and in my Opinion near twice as many; whole Families, and indeed whole Streets of Families were swept away together; insomuch that it was frequent for Neighbours to call to the Bellman, to go to such and such Houses, and fetch out the People, for that they were all dead.”