Page:A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).djvu/124

 Men could be exact in ſuch a Time of dreadful Diſtreſs, and when many of them were taken ſick themſelves, and perhaps died in the very Time when their Accounts were to be given in, I mean the Pariſh-Clerks; beſides inferior Officers; for tho’ theſe poor Men ventured at all Hazards, yet they were far from being exempt from the common Calamity, eſpecially, if it be true, that the Pariſh of Stepney had within the Year, one hundred and ſixteen Sextons, Grave-diggers, and their Aſſiſtants, that is to ſay, Bearers, Bell-men, and Drivers of Carts, for carrying off the dead Bodies.

Indeed the Work was not of a Nature to allow them Leiſure, to take an exact Tale of the dead Bodies, which were all huddled together in the Dark into a Pit; which Pit, or Trench, no Man could come nigh, but at the utmoſt Peril. I obſerv’d often, that in the Pariſhes of Algate, and Cripplegate, White-Chappel and Stepney, there was five, ſix, ſeven, and eight hundred in a Week, in the Bills, whereas if we may believe the Opinion of thoſe that liv’d in the City, all the Time, as well as I, there died ſometimes 2000 a-Week in thoſe Pariſhes; and I ſaw it under the Hand of one, that made as ſtrict an examination into that Part as he could, that there really died an hundred thouſand People of the Plague, in it that one Year, whereas the Bills, the Articles of the Plague, was but 68590.

If I may be allowed to give my Opinion, by what I ſaw with my Eyes, and heard from other People © that were Eye Witneſſes, I do verily believe the ſame, viz. that there died, at leaſt, 100000 of the Plague only, beſides other Diſtempers, and beſides thoſe which died in the Fields, and High-ways, and ſecret Places, out of the Compaſs of the Communication, as it was called; and who were not put down in the Bills, tho’ they really belonged to the Body of the Inhabitants. It was known to us all, that abundance of poor diſpairing Creatures, who had the Diſtemper upon them, and were grown ſtupid, or