e next after that of six hundred; and so on till the end of
October, when, the cold weather setting in, the amount was reduced to
nearly one thousand.

At first, when the distemper began to lose somewhat of its malignancy, a
few scared individuals appeared in the streets, but carefully shunned
each other. In a few days, however, considerable numbers joined them,
and for the first time for nearly three months there was something like
life abroad. It is astonishing how soon hope and confidence are revived.
Now that it could no longer be doubted that the plague was on the
decline, it seemed as if a miracle had been performed in favour of the
city. Houses were opened--shopkeepers resumed their business--and it was
a marvel to every one that so many persons were left alive. Dejection
and despair of the darkest kind were succeeded by frenzied delight, and
no bound was put to the public satisfaction. Strangers stopped each
other in the streets, and conversed together like old friends. The
bells, that had grown hoarse with tolling funerals, were now cracked
with joyous peals. The general joy extended even to the sick, and many,
buoyed up by hope, recovered, when in the former season of despondency
they would inevitably have perished. All fear of the plague seemed to
vanish with the flying disorder. Those who were scarcely out of danger
joined in the throng, and it was no uncommon sight to see men with
bandages round their necks, or supported by staves and crutches, shaking
hands with their friends, and even embracing them.

The consequence of this incautious conduct may be easily foreseen. The
plague had received too severe a check to burst forth anew; but it
spread further than it otherwise would have done, and attacked many
persons, who but for their own imprudence would have escaped. Amongst
others, a barber in Saint Martin's-le-Grand, who had fled into the
country in August, returned to his shop in the middle of October, and,
catching the disorder from one of his customers, perished with the whole
of his family.

But these, and several other equally fatal instances, produced no effect
on the multitude. Fully persuaded that the virulence of the disorder was
exhausted--as, indeed, appeared to be the case--they gave free scope to
their satisfaction, which was greater than was ever experienced by the
inhabitants of a besieged city reduced by famine to the last strait of
despair, and suddenly restored to freedom and plenty. Th