Page:A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).djvu/79

 I ſay all this previous to the Hiſtory, having yet, for the preſent, much more to ſay before quit my own Part.

I went all the firſt Part of the Time freely about the Streets, tho' not ſo freely as to run my ſelf into apparent Danger, except when they dug the great Pit in the Church-Yard of our Pariſh of Algate; a terrible Pit it was, and I could not reſiſt my Curioſity to go and ſee it; as near as I may judge, it was about 40 Foot in Length, and about 15 or 16 Foot broad; and at the Time I firſt looked at it, about nine Foot deep; but it was ſaid, they dug it near 20 Foot deep afterwards, in one Part of it, till they could go no deeper for the Water: for they had it ſeems, dug ſeveral large Pits before this, for tho' the Plague was long a-coming to our Pariſh, yet when it did come, there was no Parſh in or about London, where it raged with ſuch Violence as in the two Pariſhes of Algate and White Chapel.

I ſay they had dug ſeveral Pits in another Ground, when the Diſtemper began to ſpread in our Parish, and eſpecially when the Dead-Carts began to go about, which, was not in our Pariſh, till the beginning of Auguſt. Into theſe Pits they had put perhaps 50 or 60 Bodies each, then they made larger Holes, wherein they buried all that the Cart brought in a Week, which by the middle, to the End of Auguſt, came to, from 200 to 400 Week; and they could not well dig them larger, becauſe of the Order of the Magiſtrates, confining them to leave no Bodies within ſix Foot of the Surface; and the Water coming on, at about 17 or 18 Foot, they could not well, I ſay, put more in one Pit; but now at the Beginning of September, the Plague raging in a dreadful Manner, and the Number of Burials in our Pariſh increaſing to more than was ever buried in any Pariſh about London,