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 converſe with, while it is known to neither the one nor the other.

Great were the Confuſions at that time upon this very Account; and when People began to be convinc’d that the Infection was receiv’d in this ſurpriſing manner from Perſons apparently well, they began to be exceeding ſhie and jealous of every one that came near them. Once in a publick Day, whether a Sabbath Day or not I do not remember, in Aldgate Church in a Pew full of People, on a ſudden, one fancy’d ſhe ſmelt an ill Smell, immediately ſhe fancies the Plague was in the Pew, whiſpers her Notion or Suſpicion to the next, then riſes and goes out of the Pew, it immediately took with the next, and ſo to them all; and every one of them, and of the two or three adjoining Pews, got up and went out of the Church, no Body knowing what it was offended them or from whom.

This immediately filled every Bodies Mouths with one Preparation or other, ſuch as the old Women directed, and ſome perhaps as Phyſicians directed, in order to prevent Infection by the Breath of others; inſomuch that if we came to go into a Church, when it was any thing full of People, there would be ſuch a Mixture of Smells at the Entrance, that it was much more ſtrong, tho’ perhaps not ſo wholeſome, than if you were going into an Apothecary’s or Druggiſt’s Shop; in a Word, the whole Church was like a ſmelling Bottle, in one Corner it was all Perfumes, in another Aromaticks, Balſamicks, and Variety of Drugs, and Herbs; in another Salts and Spirits, as every one was furniſh’d for their own Preſervation; yet I obſerv’d, that after People were poſſeſs'd, as I have ſaid, with the Belief or rather Aſſurance, of the Infection being thus carryed on by Perſons apparently in Health, the Churches and Meeting-Houſes were much thinner of People than