not although they are really sound and free from infection.

Yet there are effectual measures for London and other great cities. For example: First. That upon the approach of the infection, proclamation should be made that all people that intend to remove themselves and families should do it within such a certain time.

Secondly. All reasonable encouragement should be given to the poorer sort of people who had any friends or relations to receive them, to remove with their families, even to the giving them reasonable allowances for their travelling; that as many poor families as possible may quit the city and separate, which would be their safety, and contribute much to the safety of the whole city also.

Thirdly. — That all such persons as have no legal settlement in the parishes within the city and liberties, &c., should be forthwith passed away by authority and sent home to the parishes from whence they came; no beggars, vagabonds, or loose people to be suffered in the streets.

Fourthly. - All the parish pensioners, alms poor, and poor chargeable upon the parish, as also all the hospital poor, should be immediately removed at the expense of the parishes respectively, to such places as each parish could secure for them, at least twenty miles from London, and to be maintained there at the charge of the public parishes to which they belong.

Fifthly.

All occasion of bringing people to London by the necessity of business should be as much

as possible prevented; to which purpose the terms must be adjourned; the Inns of Court shut up; no man should be arrested for debt, so as to be put in prison above a certain time, but that if he could not give bail, or some pledge for his appearance, such debtors should be removed to such public places as the officers of the city should be obliged to prepare, at the distance of fifteen miles at least.

Sixthly. That all the prisoners for debt should be immediately removed to the same places as above. Seventhly. That all criminals, felons, and murderers should be forthwith tried, and such as are not sentenced to die, should be immediately transported or let out on condition of going forty miles from the city, not to return on pain of death.

Eighthly. That all the children of Christ's Hospital, called the Blue Coat boys and girls, be immediately removed by the government of the said hospital to Hertford and Ware, where they have houses for their reception.

Ninthly. That all workhouse children, charity children, and all the children of the poor, as are not in condition to maintain them, should be removed into the country, at least thirty miles from the city, and be maintained there by the public.

Tenthly. That all the masters of families who purpose to abide the extremity be exhorted to send all their children that are under fourteen years of age into the country, and if any of them are destitute of places and friends to send them to, on paying a reasonable sum to the common treasure of the city, care should be taken to provide accommodation for

them in the country at the public expense, where they should be well provided for, for a year.

Eleventhly. That the governors of the Blue Coat Hospital should undertake, on the payment to them of a reasonable sum of money by the city, to provide maintenance for all such children as the city should recommend them, and to be kept in the terms of the hospital, that is to say, as they now keep their other children, not exceeding the number of twenty thousand.

Twelfthly. That the governors of the workhouses do the like in proportion, so that, in short, all the children in the city and the suburbs should be sent away.

These evacuations of people would greatly lessen the number of the poor in London, and consequently take away the fuel which the fire of the pestilence generally feeds upon.

Thirteenthly. That after the time first limited for all people that please to remove, if any person after that should desire to remove, he should not be hindered otherwise than on the following conditions:

1. On bringing good testimony of his body being sound and not infected. This testimony to be given by some able physician or surgeon or other person, after their having searched the person three days successively. 2. On the persons performing a vingtaine, that is to say, a restraint of twenty days, in such barracks or houses as shall be appointed by the magistrates of the city, at some place at least five miles from the suburbs ; after which, and no sickness appearing upon him, he shall have testimonials of health, and may go whither he pleases.

All these measures being taken at the beginning of the infection, or at the first approach of it, we might reasonably hope, God's infinite mercy concurring, that the city would be in a posture to bear the visitation much better than ever it was before; for though there would be still many thousands of the inhabitants left, yet they would live at large, be unencumbered with poor, and with children, and with all the stench and filth that attend those who want conveniences, and who would in such a calamity only serve to infect one another, and strengthen the contagion in general.

It might be reasonable to suppose that upon this dispersing of the poor people, and sending away the children of all sorts, two-thirds of the inhabitants of London would be absent, including all the families of the better inhabitants, who would voluntarily remove and take country lodgings; of this latter part we might make some guess by what was the case in the last plague in 1665. The removing of the inhabitants was at that time very great, if we may believe the report of those that were then living; I say, it was then very great, for first the whole Court removed to Oxford; there was neither Parliament or term held in London; so that all the nobility and the gentry and lawyers vanished, as it were, at once, and there was scarce a living creature to be seen about the Court. Whitehall was uninhabited, the Park shut up, the passages everywhere stopped; nothing was to be seen at the great houses of the nobility in Westminster and parts adjacent but a servant or two to look after the house, or perhaps nobody within, only a watchman or

upon

two at the gate night and day to prevent robbing the house; and as the plague began in St. Giles's parish, the people at that end of the town fled first, so that the streets looked desolate, the grass grew at the doors and the steps of the houses, and the streets were in several places barricaded at both ends, the inhabitants being entirely removed and gone. In the city, that is to say, within the walls, as I have been told, about seven thousand houses were quite empty and the doors locked up, and in most of the rest the families were thin, half or more of them gone; and this was without doubt the reason why the number that died in the city was much smaller in proportion than in any other part, there dying more by 4551 in the two parishes of Stepney and Whitechapel than the whole ninety-seven parishes within the walls.

This was doubtless owing to the fewness of the inhabitants within the walls, where the people, being generally wealthy, provided for themselves and their families by an early flight into the country; whereas in the outparts the people lived thicker and closer together, and being poor and wanting conveniences, and not able to flee for want of friends or money, or both, died in heaps, and strengthened the contagion by their numbers.

It is a consideration well worth the concern of the public, how many ways a useful and valuable charity it would be to have the children of the poorer and middling sort of people removed at such a time as that into places of health and air, and to have them taken care of for one year. I cannot think but wellinclined Christians, were it proposed to them, would