rom
the 11th of July to the 18th.

There was one shift[126] that some families had, and that not a few,
when their houses happened to be infected, and that was this: the
families who in the first breaking out of the distemper fled away into
the country, and had retreats among their friends, generally found some
or other of their neighbors or relations to commit the charge of those
houses to, for the safety of the goods and the like. Some houses were
indeed entirely locked up, the doors padlocked, the windows and doors
having deal boards nailed over them, and only the inspection of them
committed to the ordinary watchmen and parish officers; but these were
but few.

It was thought that there were not less than a thousand houses forsaken
of the inhabitants in the city and suburbs, including what was in the
outparishes and in Surrey, or the side of the water they called
Southwark. This was besides the numbers of lodgers and of particular
persons who were fled out of other families; so that in all it was
computed that about two hundred thousand people were fled and gone in
all.[127] But of this I shall speak again. But I mention it here on this
account: namely, that it was a rule with those who had thus two houses
in their keeping or care, that, if anybody was taken sick in a family,
before the master of the family let the examiners or any other officer
know of it, he immediately would send all the rest of his family,
whether children or servants as it fell out to be, to such other house
which he had not in charge, and then, giving notice of the sick person
to the examiner, have a nurse or nurses appointed, and having another
person to be shut up in the house with them (which many for money would
do), so to take charge of the house in case the person should die.

This was in many cases the saving a whole family, who, if they had been
shut up with the sick person, would inevitably have perished. But, on
the other hand, this was another of the inconveniences of shutting up
houses; for the apprehensions and terror of being shut up made many run
away with the rest of the family, who, though it was not publicly known,
and they were not quite sick, had yet the distemper upon them; and who,
by having an uninterrupted liberty to go about, but being obliged still
to conceal their circumstances, or perhaps not knowing it themselves,
gave the distemper to others, and spread the infection in a dreadful
manner, as I shall explain fur