The Pound and Cage originally adjoined each other, and stood in the middle of High Street, from whence Parton informs us it was removed in 1656, to make way for the almshouses which were afterwards built there. "The Pound," he adds, "probably existed from a very early period, as a necessary appendage to the parish while a village, and abounding in pasture lands, though it is unnoticed in the books of the parish, till Lord Southampton's grant of the ground on which it stood for the almshouses, where it is described as occupying a space of 30-feet, which was to be the dimensions of the new Pound, therein directed to be removed to the end of Tottenham Court Road. The exact site of the Pound was the broad space where St. Giles High Street, Tottenham Court Road, and Oxford street meet, where it stood till within memory. Noticed for the profligacy of its inhabitants, the vicinity of this spot became proverbial: witness a couplet of an old song, "At Newgate steps Jack Chance was found, It was finally removed about the the year 1765, since which the neighbourhood has experienced many improvements, particularly by the erection of the great Brewery of Messrs. Meux and Co. The Cage appears to have been used as a prison, not merely of a temporary kind, but judging from the parish records, with little lenity.* The Plague. St. Giles's parish has the melancholy celebrity of originating the plague of 1665, the most severe visitation of that malady that ever occurred in this country. It is on record that this dreadful scourge has extended its ravages to this country at five different periods within eighty years, namely, in 1592, when it destroyed 11,503 persons; in 1603, when it destroyed 36,269; in 1625, when 35,500 fell; and in 1636, 13,480 in London only; but the severity of the disease in 1665, was far more extensive, when no less than 97,306 of the inhabitants of London and its suburbs died of it, according to De Foe, in ten months. In 1592 and 1625, this parish is named in the bills of mortality. In the former instance, 1641. The following entries are copied in proof of this:→→→ Paid to a poor woman that was brought to bed in the cage For a shroud for a poor woman that died in the .... cage... 6 2 6 2 6 The death of this latter unfortunate, three days after the relief is stated to have been afforded her, leaves too much reason to fear she died of want. The cause of the former's death, is, to say the least of it, doubtful. there died of the plague 596, and the total number of burials was stated at 894. In 1625, the number stated which died of the plague was 947, and total of burials 1,333. No doubt can be entertained of nearly all these dying, in fact, of the plague.* * A pest house, which had been fitted-up (1625) in Bloomsbury for the nine out parishes adjoining London," among which was St. Giles in the Fields, was afterwards engaged by the parish on its own account, and there are entries in the minutes of relief sent there to the poor at various periods. This direful malady progressed more or less till 1648, during which time 13,581 persons in all died of it. The vestry ap pointed agreeably to the act two examiners to inspect the visited houses, as on former occasions. No assessment on its early appearance was made, the wealthy inhabitants having fled into the country to avoid the disease. There was afterwards an order made to pay Mr. Pratt the churchwarden, monies advanced during the calamity in the following words:-"Whereas in the year 1640, it pleased Almighty God to visit divers of the poore people of this parish, with the infec❜tion of the plague; and because divers of the gentry and p'sons of estate were then out of towne, there could not be an assessment made, and money collected amongst the p'shioners for the p'sent reliefe of the said infected, whereof Mr. William Pratt, &c. borrowed of Theodore Colley, Esq. £50; which sum appearing to have been faithfully disbursed to the said visited poor, it is ordered that the same be repaid." 1642. The entries indicate an increase in the virulence of the disease, as the dormant practice of shutting up the infected house, was then first resorted to, and the bodies were collected in carts, and unceremoniously thrown into pits or graves of large dimensions by torch light. The following entry had for its object the fastening in the infected, and to prevent access to, or coming from thereto, under severe penalties, excepting the The plague of 1665 is well described by De Foe, mixed unfortunately, however, with romance. It is pretty well authenticated that it began its melancholy progress in St. Giles's parish, near the upper end of Drury Lane, where two men, said to be Frenchmen, died of it. He tells us, its havoc in this parish alone was truly frightful, amounting to 3,216 in one year, 1665. He concludes his book thus:"A dreadful plague in London was, In the year sixty-five, Which swept an hundred thousand souls Away; yet I alive." The following are parish entries in 1643, which are curious records of the time: "To the bearers for carrying out of Crown-yard a woman that dyed of the plague S. d. 1 6 medical or other attendants, by permission of the watchman, who kept the key. There are other entries added:→ "1642. Paid for the two padlocks and hasps for ............. £. s. d. 026 visited houses Paid Mr. Hyde for candles for the bearers 0 10 0 To the same for the night cart and cover the summe of.............................. 7 9 To Mr. Mann for links and candles for the night bearers 0 0 10 0" The candles were to search such infected houses as did not return an answer to the cry of bring out your dead,' and it was not unusual to find the whole household had perished; the bodies were, in such cases or otherwise, collected in covered carts and taken to church-yards, fields, &c. and thrown into pits dug for the purpose at midnight, the persons doing this duty carrying links to light them, and generally smoking to prevent infection. Sent to a poor man shut up in Crown-yard of the plague..... Paid for a booke, and two orders concerning the I 2 5 6 1 6 Paid Mr. Hyde for padlocks and staples for a house Paid the sexton for making ten graves and for links, as per bill Paid and given Mr. Lyn the bedle, for a piece of good service for the pisshe, in conveying away of a visited household out of the pisshe to Lond' Pest House, forth of Mr. Higgons's house at Bloomsbury Received of Mr. Hearle, Dr. Temple's gift, to be given to Mrs. Hockey, a minister's widow, shut up in the crache-yard of the plague............... 10 0" Dr. Mead and others have ascribed the origin of the plague of 1665 to the importation of some cotton from Turkey, which was saturated with the infection. Maitland, speaking of it at its height, says, "all the houses were shut-up, the streets deserted, and scarcely any thing to be seen thereon but grass growing, innumerable fires for purifying the infected air, coffins, pest carts, red crosses upon doors, with dismal aspect and woeful lamentations carrying their infants to the grave, and scarcely any other sounds to be heard than those occasionally emitted from the windows of Pray for us,' and the direful call of Bring out your dead,' with the piteous groans of departing souls, and melancholy knells for bodies ready for the grave." K |