had at nine ounces and a half, and never dearer,
no, not all that season. And about the beginning of November it was sold
ten ounces and a half again; the like of which, I believe, was never
heard of in any city, under so dreadful a visitation, before.

(2) Neither was there (which I wondered much at) any want of bakers or
ovens kept open to supply the people with the bread; but this was indeed
alleged by some families, viz., that their maidservants, going to the
bakehouses with their dough to be baked, which was then the custom,
sometimes came home with the sickness (that is to say the plague) upon
them.

In all this dreadful visitation there were, as I have said before, but
two pest-houses made use of, viz., one in the fields beyond Old Street
and one in Westminster; neither was there any compulsion used in
carrying people thither. Indeed there was no need of compulsion in the
case, for there were thousands of poor distressed people who, having no
help or conveniences or supplies but of charity, would have been very
glad to have been carried thither and been taken care of; which,
indeed, was the only thing that I think was wanting in the whole public
management of the city, seeing nobody was here allowed to be brought to
the pest-house but where money was given, or security for money, either
at their introducing or upon their being cured and sent out--for very
many were sent out again whole; and very good physicians were appointed
to those places, so that many people did very well there, of which I
shall make mention again. The principal sort of people sent thither
were, as I have said, servants who got the distemper by going of errands
to fetch necessaries to the families where they lived, and who in that
case, if they came home sick, were removed to preserve the rest of the
house; and they were so well looked after there in all the time of
the visitation that there was but 156 buried in all at the London
pest-house, and 159 at that of Westminster.

By having more pest-houses I am far from meaning a forcing all people
into such places. Had the shutting up of houses been omitted and the
sick hurried out of their dwellings to pest-houses, as some proposed, it
seems, at that time as well as since, it would certainly have been
much worse than it was. The very removing the sick would have been a
spreading of the infection, and the rather because that removing
could not effectually clear the house where the sick perso