intolerable to them.

It had also this difference, that every prison, as we may call it, had
but one jailer, and as he had the whole house to guard, and that many
houses were so situated as that they had several ways out, some more,
some less, and some into several streets, it was impossible for one man
so to guard all the passages as to prevent the escape of people made
desperate by the fright of their circumstances, by the resentment of
their usage, or by the raging of the distemper itself; so that they
would talk to the watchman on one side of the house, while the family
made their escape at another.

For example, in Coleman Street there are abundance of alleys, as appears
still. A house was shut up in that they call White's Alley; and this
house had a back-window, not a door, into a court which had a passage
into Bell Alley. A watchman was set by the constable at the door of
this house, and there he stood, or his comrade, night and day, while the
family went all away in the evening out at that window into the court,
and left the poor fellows warding and watching for near a fortnight.

Not far from the same place they blew up a watchman with gunpowder, and
burned the poor fellow dreadfully; and while he made hideous cries, and
nobody would venture to come near to help him, the whole family that
were able to stir got out at the windows one storey high, two that were
left sick calling out for help. Care was taken to give them nurses to
look after them, but the persons fled were never found, till after the
plague was abated they returned; but as nothing could be proved, so
nothing could be done to them.

It is to be considered, too, that as these were prisons without bars and
bolts, which our common prisons are furnished with, so the people let
themselves down out of their windows, even in the face of the watchman,
bringing swords or pistols in their hands, and threatening the poor
wretch to shoot him if he stirred or called for help.

In other cases, some had gardens, and walls or pales, between them and
their neighbours, or yards and back-houses; and these, by friendship and
entreaties, would get leave to get over those walls or pales, and so go
out at their neighbours' doors; or, by giving money to their servants,
get them to let them through in the night; so that in short, the
shutting up of houses was in no wise to be depended upon. Neither did
it answer the end at all, serving more to make the people desperat