Page:A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).djvu/215

 Pit in Finsbury Fields, the Driver being Dead, or having been gone and abandon’d it, and the Horſes running too near it, the Cart fell in and drew the Horſes in alſo: It was ſuggeſted that the Driver was thrown in with it, and that the Cart fell upon him, by Reaſon his Whip was ſeen to be in the Pit among the Bodies; but that, I ſuppoſe, cou’d not be certain.

In our Pariſh of Aldgate, the dead-Carts were ſeveral times, as I have heard, found ſtanding at the Church-yard Gate, full of dead Bodies, but neither Bell man or Driver, or any one elſe with it; neither in theſe, or many other Caſes, did they know what Bodies they had in their Cart, for ſometimes they were let down with Ropes out of Balconies and out of Windows; and ſometimes the Bearers brought them to the Cart, ſometimes other People; nor, as the Men themſelves ſaid, did they trouble themſelves to keep any Account of the Numbers.

The Vigilance of the Magiſtrate was now put to the utmoſt Trial, and it muſt be confeſs'd, can never be enough acknowledg’d on this Occaſion alſo, whatever Expence or Trouble they were at, two Things were never neglected in the City or Suburbs either.

1. Proviſions were always to be had in full Plenty, and the Price not much rais’d neither, hardly worth ſpeaking.

2. No dead Bodies lay unburied or uncovered; and if one walk’d from one end of the City to another, no Funeral or ſign of it was to be ſeen in the Day-time, except a little, as I have ſaid above, in the three firſt Weeks in September.

This laſt Article perhaps will hardly be believ’d, when ſome Accounts which others have publiſhed ſince that ſhall be ſeen, wherein they ſay, that the Dead lay unburied, which I am aſſured was utterly