Cries and lamentations echoed from one end of the city to the other, and Death and Charles reigned over London together.
Yet in the midst of all this, many scenes of wild orgies and debauchery still went on within its gates--as, in our own day, when the cholera ravaged Paris, the inhabitants of that facetious city made it a carnival, so now, in London, they were many who, feeling they had but a few days to live at the most, resolved to defy death, and indulge in the revelry while they yet existed.

"Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you die!" was their motto; and if in the midst of the frantic dance or debauched revel one of them dropped dead, the others only shrieked with laughter, hurled the livid body out to the street, and the demoniac mirth grew twice as fast and furious as before.

Robbers and cut-purses paraded the streets at noonday, entered boldly closed and deserted houses, and bore off with impunity, whatever they pleased.

Highwaymen infested Hounslow Heath, and all the roads leading from the city, levying a toll on all who passed, and plundering fearlessly the flying citizens.

In fact, far-famed London town, in the year of grace 1665, would have given one a good idea of Pandemonium broke loose.
It was drawing to the close of an almost tropical June day, that the crowd who had thronged the precincts of St.Paul's since early morning, began to disperse.