sick. Females of rank seemed to forget their natural bashfulness,
and committed the care of their persons, indiscriminately, to men
and women of the lowest order. No longer were women, relatives or
friends, found in the house of mourning, to share the grief of the
survivors--no longer was the corpse accompanied to the grave by
neighbours and a numerous train of priests, carrying wax tapers
and singing psalms, nor was it borne along by other citizens of
equal rank. Many breathed their last without a friend to soothe
their dying pillow; and few indeed were they who departed amid the
lamentations and tears of their friends and kindred. Instead of
sorrow and mourning, appeared indifference, frivolity and mirth;
this being considered, especially by the females, as conducive to
health. Seldom was the body followed by even ten or twelve
attendants; and instead of the usual bearers and sextons,
mercenaries of the lowest of the populace undertook the office for
the sake of gain; and accompanied by only a few priests, and often
without a single taper, it was borne to the very nearest church,
and lowered into the grave that was not already too full to
receive it. Among the middling classes, and especially among the
poor, the misery was still greater. Poverty or negligence induced
most of these to remain in their dwellings, or in the immediate
neighbourhood; and thus they fell by thousands; and many ended
their lives in the streets by day and by night. The stench of
putrefying corpses was often the first indication to their
neighbours that more deaths had occurred. The survivors, to
preserve themselves from infection, generally had the bodies taken
out of the houses and laid before the doors; where the early
morning found them in heaps, exposed to the affrighted gaze of the
passing stranger. It was no longer possible to have a bier for
every corpse--three or four were generally laid together--husband