ing up
of houses; and this I take to be the best, if not the only good thing
which was performed by that severe method.

On the other hand, the complaints and the murmurings were very bitter
against the thing itself. It would pierce the hearts of all that came by
to hear the piteous cries of those infected people, who, being thus out
of their understandings by the violence of their pain or the heat of
their blood, were either shut in or perhaps tied in their beds and
chairs, to prevent their doing themselves hurt--and who would make
a dreadful outcry at their being confined, and at their being not
permitted to die at large, as they called it, and as they would have
done before.

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 were made,
the officers could not be at band to prevent it; and even when any got
out in the day, the officers appointed did not care to meddle with them,
because, as they were all grievously infected, to be sure, when they
were come to that height, so they were 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 were sure to come
to themselves entirely in that half-hour or hour, and then to make most
grievous and piercing cries and lamentations in the deep, afflicting
sense of the condition they were in. This was much of it before the
order for shutting up of houses was strictly put in execution, for
at first the watchmen were not so vigorous and severe as they were
afterward in the keeping the people in; that is to say, before they were
(I mean some of them) severely punished for their neglect, failing in
their duty, and letting people who were under their care slip away, or
conniving at their going abroad, whether sick or well. But after they
saw the officers appointed to examine into their conduct were resolved
to have them do their duty or be punished for the omission, they were
more exact, and the people were strictly restrained; which was a thing
they took so ill and bore so impatiently that their discontents can
hardly be described.