History of the Plague in London by Daniel Defoe (easy readers .txt) π
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- Author: Daniel Defoe
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Wherefore were we ordered to kill all the dogs and cats, but because, as they were domestic animals, and are apt to run from house to house and from street to street, so they are capable of carrying the effluvia or infectious steams of bodies infected, even in their furs and hair? And therefore it was, that, in the beginning of the infection, an order was published by the lord mayor and by the magistrates, according to the advice of the physicians, that all the dogs and cats should be immediately killed; and an officer was appointed for the execution.
It is incredible, if their account is to be depended upon, what a prodigious number of those creatures were destroyed. I think they talked of forty thousand dogs and five times as many cats; few houses being without a cat, some having several, sometimes five or six in a house. All possible endeavors were used also to destroy the mice and rats, especially the latter, by laying rats-bane and other poisons for them; and a prodigious multitude of them were also destroyed.
I often reflected upon the unprovided condition that the whole body of the people were in at the first coming of this calamity 121upon them; and how it was for want of timely entering into measures and managements, as well public as private, that all the confusions that followed were brought upon us, and that such a prodigious number of people sunk in that disaster which, if proper steps had been taken, might, Providence concurring, have been avoided, and which, if posterity think fit, they may take a caution and warning from. But I shall come to this part again.
I come back to my three men. Their story has a moral in every part of it; and their whole conduct, and that of some whom they joined with, is a pattern for all poor men to follow, or women either, if ever such a time comes again: and if there was no other end in recording it, I think this a very just one, whether my account be exactly according to fact or no.
Two of them were said to be brothers, the one an old soldier, but now a biscuit baker; the other a lame sailor, but now a sailmaker; the third a joiner. Says John the biscuit baker, one day, to Thomas, his brother, the sailmaker, "Brother Tom, what will become of us? The plague grows hot in the city, and increases this way. What shall we do?"
"Truly," says Thomas, "I am at a great loss what to do; for I find if it comes down into Wapping I shall be turned out of my lodging." And thus they began to talk of it beforehand.
John. Turned out of your lodging, Tom? If you are, I don't know who will take you in; for people are so afraid of one another now, there is no getting a lodging anywhere.
Tho. Why, the people where I lodge are good civil people, and have kindness for me too; but they say I go abroad every day to my work, and it will be dangerous; and they talk of locking themselves up, and letting nobody come near them.
John. Why, they are in the right, to be sure, if they resolve to venture staying in town.
Tho. Nay, I might even resolve to stay within doors too; for, except a suit of sails that my master has in hand, and which122 I am just finishing, I am like to get no more work a great while. There's no trade stirs now, workmen and servants are turned off everywhere; so that I might be glad to be locked up too. But I do not see that they will be willing to consent to that any more than to the other.
John. Why, what will you do then, brother? And what shall I do? for I am almost as bad as you. The people where I lodge are all gone into the country but a maid, and she is to go next week, and to shut the house quite up; so that I shall be turned adrift to the wide world before you: and I am resolved to go away too, if I knew but where to go.
Tho. We were both distracted we did not go away at first, when we might ha' traveled anywhere: there is no stirring now. We shall be starved if we pretend to go out of town. They won't let us have victuals, no, not for our money, nor let us come into the towns, much less into their houses.
John. And, that which is almost as bad, I have but little money to help myself with, neither.
Tho. As to that, we might make shift. I have a little, though not much; but I tell you there is no stirring on the road. I know a couple of poor honest men in our street have attempted to travel; and at Barnet,186 or Whetstone, or thereabout, the people offered to fire at them if they pretended to go forward: so they are come back again quite discouraged.
John. I would have ventured their fire, if I had been there. If I had been denied food for my money, they should have seen me take it before their faces; and, if I had tendered money for it, they could not have taken any course with me by the law.
Tho. You talk your old soldier's language, as if you were in the Low Countries187 now; but this is a serious thing. The people have good reason to keep anybody off that they are not satisfied are sound at such a time as this, and we must not plunder them.
123John. No, brother, you mistake the case, and mistake me too: I would plunder nobody. But for any town upon the road to deny me leave to pass through the town in the open highway, and deny me provisions for my money, is to say the town has a right to starve me to death; which cannot be true.
Tho. But they do not deny you liberty to go back again from whence you came, and therefore they do not starve you.
John. But the next town behind me will, by the same rule, deny me leave to go back; and so they do starve me between them. Besides, there is no law to prohibit my traveling wherever I will on the road.
Tho. But there will be so much difficulty in disputing with them at every town on the road, that it is not for poor men to do it, or undertake it, at such a time as this is especially.
John. Why, brother, our condition, at this rate, is worse than anybody's else; for we can neither go away nor stay here. I am of the same mind with the lepers of Samaria.188 If we stay here, we are sure to die. I mean especially as you and I are situated, without a dwelling house of our own, and without lodging in anybody's else. There is no lying in the street at such a time as this; we had as good189 go into the dead cart at once. Therefore, I say, if we stay here, we are sure to die; and if we go away, we can but die. I am resolved to be gone.
Tho. You will go away. Whither will you go, and what can you do? I would as willingly go away as you, if I knew whither; but we have no acquaintance, no friends. Here we were born, and here we must die.
John. Look you, Tom, the whole kingdom is my native country as well as this town. You may as well say I must not go out of my house if it is on fire, as that I must not go out of the town I was born in when it is infected with the plague. I was born in England, and have a right to live in it if I can.
Tho. But you know every vagrant person may, by the laws of England, be taken up, and passed back to their last legal settlement.
124John. But how shall they make me vagrant? I desire only to travel on upon my lawful occasions.
Tho. What lawful occasions can we pretend to travel, or rather wander, upon? They will not be put off with words.
John. Is not flying to save our lives a lawful occasion? And do they not all know that the fact is true? We cannot be said to dissemble.
Tho. But, suppose they let us pass, whither shall we go?
John. Anywhere to save our lives: it is time enough to consider that when we are got out of this town. If I am once out of this dreadful
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