Proper dresses are provided for the patients, and worn by them in the hospital, while their own cloaths are fumigated with brimstone, which is always done before their discharge.
The sums received for the support of this hospital since its foundation in 1746, amount to 18,926l. And there have been received into the house for the natural way from the 26th of September 1746, to the 25th of March 1759, 3946 patients, of which 2916 have been cured; A very great number considering the fatality of this distemper, and that most of them were adults, often admitted after great irregularities, and some when past cure.
But what appears much more extraordinary, out of 131 who were inoculated before the 31st of December 1751, only two died, one by worms, who did not appear to have them before the inoculation, and the other apprehended to have first caught the distemper in the natural way. From that period till the 25th of March 1759, the number of inoculated amounts to 1567, out of which only four have died. An astonishing proof of the advantages of inoculation! From the account published by the governors.
Small’s rents, Petticoat lane, Whitechapel.†
Smart’s key, Billingsgate.†
Smart’s rents, Lamb alley, St. Giles’s.†
Smithfield, or West Smithfield, though the epithet West is never used but to distinguish it from East Smithfield near Little Tower Hill. This is the greatest market for black cattle, sheep and horses, in Europe; and also a considerable market for hay and straw; for the sale of which it was famous five hundred years ago. Maitland derives its name from its being originally a smooth or level field; and observes that it was anciently much larger than at present, it being greatly diminished by the buildings with which it is inclosed, the whole west side extended as far as the sheep market does at present, and was called the Elms, from the many elm-trees growing there; this was the place of execution for offenders in the year 1219, and it seems long before.
King Henry II. granted to the priory of St. Bartholomew the privilege of a fair to be kept annually at Bartholomew tide, on the eve, the day, and the morrow, to which the clothiers of England, and the drapers of London repaired, and had their booths and standings in the church-yard within the priory, which was separated from Smithfield only by walls and gates, that were locked every night and watched, for the safety of the goods deposited there; and the narrow street or lane afterwards built where the cloth was sold, still retains the name of cloth fair.
This fair, which was appointed to be kept three days, was at length prolonged to a fortnight, and became of little other use but for idle youth, and loose people to resort to it, upon which it was again reduced to the original standard; and the booths, for drolls and plays in the middle of Smithfield, by the falling of which many persons had lost their lives, were ordered to be no longer permitted.
Smithfield was also used in very early times for jousts and tournaments, to which the King and nobility resorted, of which we find upon record several instances in the reigns of Edward III. Richard II. Henry IV. Henry V. Henry VI. and Edward IV.