Page 102 [102]
OCR
80 THE GROWTH OF THE CITY sanitary, were invented to account for the constant inroads of the plague. The water supply, to which we now know it to have been due, was never suspected ; and in 1500 it was computed that the death-rate from this cause alone had reached 30,000. This is a moderate estimate beside the 50,000 said to have died in 1349. In many houses there were private wells, and a spring in the churchyard of Cripplegate was especially popular, though it received the drainage of one of the largest of the cemeteries. Until our own day the causes of these frightful epidemics were absolutely unknown, though they were connected rightly with want of cleanliness. Only fifty years ago, Hecker, one of the best authorities, was inclined to attribute the Black Death to atmospheric causes and a series of earthquakes. Another plunge of two hundred years down the stream of time would take us to 1666, the year of the Great Fire. For that period, and, indeed, from the reign of Queen Elizabeth, we have many contemporary authorities. Stow’s marvellous Swrvey, one of the best topographical books ever written, a wonder even in the age which produced Shakespeare, tells us what London looked like immediately after the Reformation. The old churches at the Grey, Black, White, and Austin Friars were still stand = =a i am. rT, = dás , úti tú ő ta a ka" ü 98 - ú A q i Lőj "iz ke Fr ? ee ~ fe : t [d 7 2 Pr 4 a Sete 4 a a e a nailed _ “ ai — ing. So were parts of St. Martin s WILLIAM IV STATUE, KING WILLIAM STREET
