15 
moreover, that a good watch should be set in every town in the 
Ainsty ; and that a view he taken at every postern and place in 
the city walls “ where people get over/’ and that such places 
be secured, to prevent the same hereafter. A few days afterwards 
two good men in each parish were nominated to oversee that the 
constables were not slack in doing their duty. 
On the minutes of the 29th of August appears this appalling 
entry:—Whereas it hath pleased Almighty God to visit some 
persons in St.Lawrence Churchyard* with the infection of the 
plague, which came unto them by means of a woman which 
they received thither that came from Armyn, being now sore 
infected, and there are two dead of the said infection ; and 
they have all conversed one with another.” 
More rigid measures of precaution were at once adopted. Six 
watchmen were set to watch the persons in the church-yard, and 
to keep them therein, viz., four in the street on the foreside, and 
two on the backside in St. Lawrence Lees. The constables 
were ordered to set all tinklers, feather-women, beggars, and all 
other wandering strangers, out of the city, and such persons 
were not to he suffered to enter at any bar. No apple-sellers, 
nor other fruit or onion-sellers, were to be permitted, but wholly 
restrained from going abroad to sell the same. No persons to 
be suffered to go abroad with any clothes to sell. No person 
to resort to the houses of any of the sick, unless it he their keep¬ 
ers, or the surgeons that shall minister to them in the time of 
their sickness. A purveyor was appointed for buying of victuals 
for relieving the visited people in St. Lawrence church-yard, and 
a porter to deliver the meat unto them. 
The Lord Mayor and aldermen agreed to hold courts on three 
days in the week, at 8 o’clock a. m., during this dangerous 
time of infection.t 
On the 31st of August, the Lord Mayor "wrote to Aid. Besson, 
who was then residing in the country :— 
^ The churchyard of St. Laurence adjoins the high road from York to Hull, 
a few hundred yards beyond Walmgate Bar. A number of small mean dwellings 
were clustered around it. 
t The annual feast of the Merchants’ Company, appointed for Wednesday 
next, was deferred, and in respect of these dangerous times of infection, was 
ordered not to be held at all. 
