The true Democrat., 1854-11-29
The Great Plague.

In Dickens Child's History of England,' Vol. 2, we find the following respecting the Great Plague that prevailed in the seventeenth century in the city of London:
 ''For this was the year and the time of the Great Plague in London. During the winter of 1864, it had been whispered about that some people had died here and there of disease call ed the Plague, in some of the unwholesome suburbs of London. News was not published at that time as it is now, and some people be- lleved these rumors and some disbelieved them, and they were soon forgotten But in the month of May, 1865, it began to be said all over the town that the disease had burst out, at St. Giles and that the people were dying in great numbers. This soon turned out to be awfully true. The roads of London were chok- ed up by people endeavorng to escape from the infected city, and large sums were paid for any kind of conveyance. The disease soon spread so fast that it was necessary to shut up the house in which people were, and to cut them off from the living. Every one of these houses were marked on the outside of the door with red cross, and the words Lord have mercy on us.'' The streets were all deserted grass grew in the public ways, and there was a dreadful silence in the air. When night came on, dismal rumblings used to be heard. and those were the wheels of the death cart, attend ed bymen with 'veiled faces, and holding cloths to their mouths, who rang doleful bells, and cried in a loud and solemn voice" Bring out your dead" The corpses put into these carts were buried by torch light in great pits no ser vice being performed over them-all men be- ing afraid to stay for moment on the bank of the ghastly graves. In the general fever, chil- dren ran away from their parents and parents from their children
 Some who were taken i'll, died alone and without any help. Some were stabbed ol$tran- gled by hired nurses, who robbed them of all their money and stole the very beds on which they lay. Some went mad, dropped their win dows, ran through the streets and in their pain and frenzy, threw themselves into the river
 These were not all the horrors of the time. The wicked and dssoute, in wild desparation. sat in taverns, singing roaring songs, and were stricken as they sat, and went out and died. The fearful and supernatural sights-burning swords in the sky, gigantic arms and darts. Others pretended that at night vast crowds of ghosts walked round and round the dismal pits. One madman, naked, and carrying a brazier full of burning coals upon his head, stalled through the streets, crying that he was prophet com mlssloned to denounce the vengeance of the Lord on wicked London. Another also went to and fro, exclaiming "Yet forty days and London shall be destroyedn' third awoke the echoes of the dismal streets, by night and day, and made the blood of the sick run cold by calling out necessarily, in a deep, hoarse voice" Oh the great and the dreadful God.''
 Through the months of July, August and September, the Great Plague ragged more and more. Great fires were lighted in the streets
 in the hope of stopping the infection; but there was plague ofrain, too, and that beat the fire out. At last the winds thatusually rise at that time called the equinox, when day and night are of equal length all over the world, began to blow and purify the wretched town. The deaths began to decrease, the red crosses slow ly to disappear the fugitives to return, the shops to open again, pale, frightened faces to bsseen in the streets. The plague had been in every part of England, but in close and un- wholesome London it had killed one hundred thousand DeODen