foul air in a house was bad enough to kill
birds in their cages, plague was pretty sure
to follow. "The death of birds," says Dr.
Symon, "in houses where they are caged,
ordinarily precedes the death of the
inhabitants."

A good many auspices were at that time
drawn from birds, and signs were watched
for not from birds alone. "There are people
who rely on pitiable things as certain tokens
of the plague's going very shortly. I have
been told more than once," says the good
Rector, "of the falling out of the clapper of
the great bell at Westminster, which they
say it did before the last great plague ended;
and this they take for a very comfortable
sign. Others speak of the daws more
frequenting the palace and abbey, which, if
true, is a better sign, supposing the air to
have been infected; for the books I read tell
me that the going away of birds is the
forerunner of a plague, and that we shall see few
in a plague year."

When the plague was declining, the Rector
wrote to his friend—"In a month's time, I
believe, the town will fill, and then, if the
sickness do not increase, you may venture not
long after that to come to your habitation.
Yet, if you consult your brother he will tell
you the physician's rule is composed in three
words when they advise what to do in the
plague, which in English are, Quickly—far-
off—slowly; that is, Fly soon and far enough,
and return late. To his counsel and opinion
I refer you. Set a watch at your door, and
let it be known that you admit of no visits
—not even mine."

Another plague of London, that has made
it necessary enough for people to set watch
at their doors, remains with us; but in a less
virulent form than that which it took in the
olden time—the plague of street rogues and
sharpers. Very long ago, it was necessary to
dismantle the forest of Middlesex, to widen
the roads, to fill ditches, to remove trees, and
otherwise to take measures to deprive the
thieves of cover. Hanging, and other
measures taken against the rogues of London,
having failed to produce any good result, in
the year one thousand five hundred and
sixty-three, the most awful scheme was
devised of appointing beadles for the apprehension
of vagabonds and sturdy beggars. The
beadles, armed with their own inherent
terrors, went briskly to work, carried the
rogues to Bridewell, and conveyed to hospital
the blind, the lame and impotent, and sick
and sore. Children aged sixteen were
received into Christ's Hospital; and citizens
were earnestly entreated to give employment
to such men and women as were able and
disposed to work.

In the year fifteen hundred and eighty-one,
Recorder Fleetwood established a body of
detective police, or privy searchers, who
hunted up loose vagabonds and sharpers, then
in great number pestering the city. Not
very long afterwards, in spite of detectives,
and of arrests of rogues by the hundred in a
batch, a company of vagabonds encompassed
Queen Elizabeth's coach while she was riding
abroad in the evening, to take the air." They
hovered before her face in a swarm, like
summer gnats, and "on that night and the
next day seventy-four were taken." I am
afraid the justice done on these occasions was
but rough, and that many of these vagabonds
had sorrows greater than arrest to vex their
hearts. Towards the close of the sixteenth
century, a year of plague, and consequent
distress, through loss of occupation, was followed
by a year in which the city, as also other
parts of the country, "was grievously pestered
with beggars, and there were many of them
disbanded soldiers, become poor and maimed
by the war with the Low Countries and
Spain." Against these and worse rascals, by
whom their distress was counterfeited, glorious
Queen Bess issued a proclamation.

Soon afterwards, the thieves of London
almost succeeded in a plan of robbery upon
her Majesty's person, in St. Paul's Churchyard,
and quite succeeded in robbing an
alderman on his way home from a City feast.
As Sidney Smith hoped for a little safety in a
railway carriage after a bishop had been
burnt, so there was hope for safety in the
streets of London after an alderman had been
waylaid and robbed. The proper measures
were then taken, which consist always not so
much in multiplying penalties against crime,
as in removing the facilities for its commission.
An alderman having been robbed, at
night, in a dark street, it was ordered that,
in the close London streets and alleys, more
lamps should be hung. There was an
immediate decrease in the number of offences.

But the most troublesome and filthy of the
London plagues of this description is not one
to be removed by putting light into a lantern;
it needs, rather, the putting of light into
men's heads. The best way to abolish knaves
is to abolish fools. It is only because tens of
thousands traverse London streets, who are
grossly ignorant and stupid, that the same
streets abound in sharpers ever ready to
delude. Education most effectually lessens
crime; not by direct conversion of vice into
virtue, but checks it, as gas-light does, by
baulking it of one of the conditions under
which it works. As you may kill a plant by
depriving it of air or water, although you leave
the plant itself untouched, so you may kill
crime by removing all the ignorance on which
it feeds. It is only because men are less
stupid than they used to be that they are less
willing to go down the small streets in the
Strand with gentlemen who whisper promises
of fine smuggled cigars and handkerchiefs, or
less disposed to go down on their knees to
pick up the choke-pears, scattered by a
costermonger, at the cost of their hats and other
personals, which become liable to seizure by
the costermonger's friends.