MISCELLANEA 209 



into the heads of the poor. They went on 'vith the usual im- 

 petuosity of their tempers, full of outcries and lamentations when 

 taken, but madly careless of themselves, foolhardy, and obstinate 

 while they were well. This adventurous conduct of the poor 

 was that which brought the plague among them in a most furious 

 manner, and this, joined to the distress of their circumstances 

 when taken, was the reason why they died so by heaps ; for I 

 cannot say I could observe one jot of better husbandry among 

 them — I mean the labouring poor — while they were all well and. 

 getting money than there was before, but as lavish, as extrava- 

 gant, and as thoughtless for to-morrow as ever ; so that when 

 they came to be taken sick they were immediately in the utmost 

 distress, as well for want as for sickness, as well for lack of food 

 as lack of health." 



This, then, is the contemporary, or nearly contemporary, 

 record of the incidence of the plague, and it seems to have fallen 

 upon the foolish and the reckless — which then, as now, appear 

 to be more frequently found among the poor than in other social 

 classes — " so that they died by heaps." It is pathetic, no doubt ; 

 but we must not overlook the real significance of this incidence 

 because of that. The gist of the matter, indeed, is very simple. 

 Foolishness and recklessness are not the products of poverty, 

 but poverty is the consequence of inherently foolish and reckless 

 natures'. That is why the poor are poor ; that is why civic 

 defectiveness is more largely developed in them as a class than 

 in other classes ; it is because the inherently defective tend to 

 sink downwards into the lower social strata. The twentieth 

 century does not diflfer from the fifteenth in this matter. And, 

 if a great epidemic were to sweep over England to-day, the 

 Defoe of our time would write precisely what the Defoe of two 

 hundred and forty-five years ago wrote. The " poor are always 

 with us," but it is too often forgotten to add, "and are always 

 the same." 



As a further illustration of the reckless and wasteful nature 

 of the poor we read : "There was a most excessive plenty of all 

 sorts of fruit, such as apples, pears, plums, cherries, grapes, and 

 they were the cheaper because of the want of people ; but this 

 made the poor eat them to excess, and this brought them into 

 fluxes, griping of the guts, surfeits, and the like, which often 

 precipitated them into the plague." 



In yet another part of the " Journal " we read as follows : 

 " They not only went boldly into company with those who had 

 tumours and carbuncles* upon them that were running, and 

 consequently contagious, but ate and drank with them, nay, 

 went into their houses to visit them, and even, as I was told, 



* Of the Plague. 



