ble that though at first the
people would stop as they went along and call to the neighbours to come
out on such an occasion, yet afterward no notice was taken of them; but
that if at any time we found a corpse lying, go across the way and not
come near it; or, if in a narrow lane or passage, go back again and seek
some other way to go on the business we were upon; and in those cases
the corpse was always left till the officers had notice to come and take
them away, or till night, when the bearers attending the dead-cart would
take them up and carry them away. Nor did those undaunted creatures
who performed these offices fail to search their pockets, and sometimes
strip off their clothes if they were well dressed, as sometimes they
were, and carry off what they could get.

But to return to the markets. The butchers took that care that if any
person died in the market they had the officers always at band to take
them up upon hand-barrows and carry them to the next churchyard; and
this was so frequent that such were not entered in the weekly bill,
'Found dead in the streets or fields', as is the case now, but they went
into the general articles of the great distemper.

But now the fury of the distemper increased to such a degree that even
the markets were but very thinly furnished with provisions or frequented
with buyers compared to what they were before; and the Lord Mayor caused
the country people who brought provisions to be stopped in the streets
leading into the town, and to sit down there with their goods, where
they sold what they brought, and went immediately away; and this
encouraged the country people greatly-to do so, for they sold their
provisions at the very entrances into the town, and even in the fields,
as particularly in the fields beyond Whitechappel, in Spittlefields;
also in St George's Fields in Southwark, in Bunhill Fields, and in a
great field called Wood's Close, near Islington. Thither the Lord Mayor,
aldermen, and magistrates sent their officers and servants to buy for
their families, themselves keeping within doors as much as possible,
and the like did many other people; and after this method was taken the
country people came with great cheerfulness, and brought provisions of
all sorts, and very seldom got any harm, which, I suppose, added also to
that report of their being miraculously preserved.

As for my little family, having thus, as I have said, laid in a store
of bread, butter, cheese,