Page:Lives of British Physicians.djvu/117

 SYDENHAM. 99 when one looked out and said (with an angry- quick tone, yet with a voice that was crying), ' What d'ye want, that ye make such a noise V He answered, ' I am the watcliman, how do ye do? What is the matter?' The person answered, cart was stopped, and they knocked again ; but no- body answered, and the cart-man would not tarry. When the day-watchman came, they knocked again a great while ; none answered : the case- ment being open at which the person had looked out, they procured a ladder, and found a dead woman on the floor, covered only with her shift. •' A magistrate ordered the house to be broken open, wherein were none found but the dead sister to the mistress of the family ; the master, his wife, seve- ral children and servants, escaped at some back door, or over the tops of houses ; whether sick or sound, was not known." The Government exerted itself to the utmost to st6m the pestilential torrent, appeals to heaven were ordered, and the king commanded the Col- lege of Physicians jointly to write something in English that might be a general directory in this calamitous exigency : some were chosen out of that body and appointed specially to attend the infected on all occasions ; and two persons out of the court of Aldermen were required to see this hazardous task properly executed. The plague, however, continued unabated ; in July 18th, Pepys remarks — " I was much troubled this day to hear at Westminster how the officers do bury the dead in the open fields, Tuttlefieids, pretending want of H 2
 * What is that to you? — s^oj} the dead cart.' Tiie