220 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



Southwark; and perhaps many more in or near our great towns and 

 cities. Moreover, some crowned heads, and other wealthy and 

 charitable personages, bequeathed large legacies to such poor 

 people as languished under this hopeless infirmity. 



It must, therefore, in these days be to a humane and thinking 

 person a matter of equal wonder and satisfaction, when he con- 

 templates how nearly this pest is eradicated, and observes that a 

 leper now is a rare sight. He will, moreover, when engaged in 

 such a train of thought naturally inquire for the reason. This 

 happy change, perhaps, may have originated and been continued 

 from the much smaller quantity of salted meat and fish now eaten 

 in these kingdoms ; from the use of linen next the skin ; from the 

 plenty of better bread ; and from the profusion of fruits, roots, 

 legumes, and greens, so common in every family. Three or four 

 centuries ago, before there were any enclosures, sown-grasses, 

 field-turnips, or field-carrots, or hay, all the cattle which had grown 

 fat in summer, and were not killed for winter use, were turned out 

 soon after Michaelmas to shift as they could through the dead 

 months ; so that no fresh meat could be had in winter or spring. 

 Hence the marvellous account of the vast stores of salted flesh 

 found in the larder of the eldest Spencer * in the days of Edward II., 

 even so late in the spring as the 3rd May. It was from maga- 

 zines like these that the turbulent barons supported in idleness 

 their riotous swarms of retainers ready for any disorder or mischief. 

 But agriculture is now arrived at such a pitch of perfection that our 

 best and fattest meats are killed in the winter ; and no man need 

 eat salted flesh unless he prefers it, that has money to buy fresh. 



One cause of this distemper might be, no doubt, the quantity 

 of wretched fresh and salt fish consumed by the commonalty at 

 all seasons as well as in Lent ; which our poor now would hardly 

 be persuaded to touch. 



The use of linen changes, shirts or shifts, in the room of sordid 

 and filthy woollen, long worn next the skin, is a matter of neatness 

 comparatively modern ; but must prove a great means of pre- 

 venting cutaneous ails. At this very time woollen, instead of linen, 

 prevails among the poorer Welch, who are subject to foul eruptions. 

 * Viz., six hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef, and six hundred muttons. 



