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under this calamity. Tliere was a hospital for female lepers in 
the diocese of Lincoln, a noble one near Durham, three in 
London and 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 think- 
ing person, a matter of equal wonder and satisfaction, when he 
contemplates 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 now 
in every family. Three or four centuries ago, before there were 
any inclosuies, 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 liad in winter or spring. Hence the mar- 
vellous account of the vast stores of salted flesh found in the 
larder of the eldest Spencer, viz. six hundred bacons, eighty 
carcases of beef, and six hundred muttons, in the days of 
Edward the Second, even so late in the spring as the 3rd of 
May. It was from magazines 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. 
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 
haidly 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 
