Page:New observations on inoculation - Angelo Gatti.djvu/113

Rh She was first discovered floating on her face by an old man, who was accidentally passing by on the opposite side of the river. He went round as fast as he could to alarm the people at the nearest house, which was the Crown Ale-house, and which was at some distance from the river. How long she had been in this position is uncertain; but when she was taken out, and laid on the grass, there was not the least appearance of life.

This part of the New-River, though at Islington, being in the parish of Clerkenwell, notice was sent of this event from Islington, after much altercation which of the two parishes ought to be at the expence of burying her, to one of the overseers of the poor, who gave an order for the parish-bearers to bring her to the workhouse at St. James's Clerkenwell. Accordingly one William Stevens, the parish gravedigger, who is now alive and near eighty years old, and Thomas Bull, a parish-bearer, since dead, were sent for this purpose.

As they were bringing her in a coffin across the fields to Clerkenwell, Bull's foot, it being frosty weather, slipped from under him; and he not being able to recover himself, let her fall on the ground.

While they were lifting her up again on their shoulders, they fancied they heard a faint sort of groan, which was related to the people, when they brought her to the work-house. Here she was laid upon the lid of the parish coffin, under an open arch going into the infirmary, the usual Rh