Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/245

Rh the best, of fourpenny breadth, and I would fain have some very little edging lace, as slight as may be, to edge the strings, and but little silver in it; ten yards will be enough." The close summer of 1665 brought our ancestors something else to think of besides dress and recreation. After a dry winter and spring, June dawned with unusual heat, and the twelfth and last plague swept over England, carrying off hundreds and thousands of men, women, and children of every class, deadening all effort, paralysing all commerce, and defeating all attempts to stay it. Walking in the streets of London, men suddenly became aware that an ever-increasing number of houses were marked with the fatal red cross on the door, accompanied by the pathetic prayer, "Lord, have mercy upon us." The sign was familiar enough to those who had lived through the terrible visitation of 1603, and that of 1625, which had devastated so many homes. Since those days the population of London had almost doubled, and it was little short of half a million when the plague broke out. But if the population of England had increased, one condition throughout the large towns remained