Page:A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).djvu/244

 The Weekly Bills are the only Evidence on the other ſide, and thoſe Bills were not of Credit enough, at leaſt with me, to ſupport an Hypotheſis, or determine a Queſtion of ſuch Importance as this: For it was our receiv’d Opinion at that time, and I believe upon very good Grounds, that the Fraud lay in the Pariſh Officers, Searchers, and Perſons appointed to give Account of the Dead, and what Diſeaſes they died of: And as People were very loth at firſt to have the Neighbours believe their Houſes were infected, ſo they gave Money to procure, or otherwiſe procur’d the dead Perſons to be return’d as dying of other Diſtempers; and this I know was practis’d afterwards in many Places, I believe I might ſay in all Places, where the Diſtemper came, as will be ſeen by the vaſt Encreaſe of the Numbers plac’d in the Weekly Bills under other Articles of Diſeaſes, during the time of the Infection: For Example, in the Month of July and Auguſt, when the Plague was coming on to its higheſt Pitch; it was very ordinary to have from a thouſand to twelve hundred, nay to almoſt fifteen Hundred a Week of other Diſtempers; not that the Numbers of thoſe Diſtempers were really encreaſed to ſuch a Degree: But the great Number of Families and Houſes where really the Infection was, obtain’d the Favour to have their dead be return’d of other Diſtempers to prevent the ſhutting up their Houſes. For Example,

Dead of other Diſeaſes beſides the Plague.