The record-union., 1897-03-08

mitted to die at large" as they called
it, and as they would have done before
STRANGE SCENES IN THE STREETS.
This running of distempered people
about the streets was very dismal. and
the magistrates did their utmost to
prevent it, but as it was generally in
the night, and always sudden, when
such attempts We're made, the officers
could not be at hand to prevent it; and
even when they got out in the day the
officers appointed did not care to med
die with them, because, as they We're
all grievously infected, to be sure, when
they were come to that hight, so they
We're more than ordinarily infectious,
and it was one of the most dangerous
things that could be to touch them.
On the other hand, they generally ran
| on, not knowing what they did, till
| they dropped down stark dead, or till
| they had exhausted their spirits so as
| that they would fall and then die in
| perhaps half an hour or an hour; and,
which was most piteOuS to hear they
We're sure to come to themselves en-
| tirely in that half hour or more, and
| then to make most grievous and pierre
ing cries and lamentations, in the
| deep affecting sense of the condition
they were in. There was much of it
| before the order for shutting up Of
houses was strictly put into execution
| for at first the watchmen were not SO
| rigorous and severe as they were after
ward in the keeping the people in; that
| is to say, before they were U mean
some of them severely punished for
their neglect, failing in their duty, and
| letting people who We're under their
care slip away, or conniving at their
| going abroad, whether sick or well.
But after they saw the officers appoint
| cd to examine into their conduct were
resolved to have them do their duty,
CT be punished for the omission, they
were more exact, and the people were
strictly restrained; which was a thing
they took so i'll, and bore so impatiently
that their discontents can hardly be de-
scribed; but there was an absolute
necessity for it, that must be confessed,
unless some other measures had been
timely entered upon, and it was too
late for that.
Had not this particular of the sick
being restrained as above been our
case at that time, London would have
been the most dreadful place that ever
was in the world. There would, for
aught I know, have as many people
died in the streets as died in their
houses; for when the distemper was at
it's hight it generally made them raw
ing and delirious; and when they were
sc they would never be persuaded to
keep in their beds but by force; and
many who We're not tied threw them
selves out Of windows when they found
they could not get leave to go out of
their doors.
DEFOE WAS NOT SUPERSTITIOUS.
But when L am speaking of the
tural causes, we must consider it as it
was really propagated by natural
means. Nor is it at all the less a judg-
ment for it's being under the conduct
of human causes and effects; for as the
Divine Power If3s formed the whole
scheme of nature, and maintains ma
ture in its course so the same Power
thinks fit to let His own actings with
men, whether Of mercy or judgment, to
go on in the ordinary course of natural
causes, and He is pleased to act by
| those natural causes as the ordinary
means excepting and reserving to
Himself nevertheless, a power to act
in a supernatural way when He sees
occasion Now it is evident that, in
the case of an infection, there is no
apparent extraordinary occasion for