Ten Thousand Wonderful Things / Comprising whatever is marvellous and rare, curious, eccentric and extraordinary in all ages and nations

by Unknown

But the ravages made by the plague in London, about 1665, are well known: it was brought over from Holland, in some Levant goods, about the close of the year 1664: its progress was arrested, in a great degree, by a hard frost which set in in the winter; but as the spring of 1665 advanced, its virulence advanced. Infected houses were shut up and red crosses painted on the doors, with this inscription, "Lord have mercy upon us." Persons going to market took the meat off the hooks themselves, for their own security, and for the Butcher's, dropped their money into pans of vinegar; for it was supposed that even their provisions were tainted with the infection. In the months of August and September the greatest mortality occurred; for the deaths of one week have been estimated at 10,000! It may be supposed, that no great accuracy existed in the Registers, to afford a correct estimate; for, in the parish of Stepney, it is said they lost, within the year, 116 sextons, grave-diggers and their assistants; and, as the disorder advanced, the churchyards were incapable of holding more bodies, and large pits were therefore dug in several parts, to which the dead were brought by cartloads, collected by the ringing of a bell and the mournful cry of "Bring out your dead." Add to this, that these carts worked in the night, and no exact account was kept, as the clerks and sextons were averse to a duty exposing them to such dangerous consequences, and often carried off before such accounts as they had taken were delivered in. All the shops were shut up, grass grew in the most public streets, until about December 1665, when the plague abated, and the citizens who had left their abodes for the country, crowded back again to their residences. The computation is, that this horrible disease carried off 100,000 persons in London: it is singular, that the only parish quite exempt from infection was St. John the Evangelist, in Watling Street.

LANDSLIP AT COLEBROOK, SHROPSHIRE.

A most remarkable circumstance happened there in the morning of the 27th of May, 1773, about four o'clock. Near 4,000 yards from the river Severn stood a house, where a family dwelt; the man got up about three o'clock, heard a rumbling noise, and felt the ground shake under him, on which he called up his family. They perceived the ground begin to move, but knew not which way to run; however, they providentially and wonderfully escaped, by taking an immediate flight, for just as they got to an adjacent wood, the ground they had left separated from that on which they stood. They first observed a small crack in the ground about four or five inches wide, and a field that was sown with oats to heave up and roll about like waves of water; the trees moved as if blown with wind, but the air was calm and serene; the Severn (in which at that time was a considerable flood) was agitated very much, and the current seemed to run upwards. They perceived a great crack run very quick up the ground from the river. Immediately about thirty acres of land, with the hedges and trees standing (except a few that were overturned), moved with great force and swiftness towards the Severn, attended with great and uncommon noise, compared to a large flock of sheep running swiftly. That part of the land next the river was a small wood, less than two acres, in which grew twenty large oaks; a few of them were thrown down, and as many more were undermined and overturned; some left leaning, the rest upright, as if never disturbed. The wood was pushed with such velocity into the channel of the Severn (which at that time was remarkably deep), that it forced the waters up in columns a considerable height, like mighty fountains, and drove the bed of the river before it on the opposite shore, many feet above the surface of the water, where it lodged, as did one side of the wood; the current being instantly stopped, occasioned a great inundation above, and so sudden a fall below, that many fish were left on dry land, and several barges were heeled over, and when the stream came down were sunk, but none were damaged above. The river soon took its course over a large meadow that was opposite the small wood, and in three days wore a navigable channel through the meadow. A turnpike road was moved more than thirty yards from its former situation, and to all appearance rendered for ever impassable. A barn was carried about the same distance, and left as a heap of rubbish in a large chasm; the house received but little damage. A hedge that was joined to the garden was removed about fifty yards. A great part of the land was in confused heaps, full of cracks, from four inches to more than a yard wide. Several very long and deep chasms were formed in the upper part of the land, from about fourteen to upwards of thirty yards wide, in which were many pyramids of earth standing, with the green turf remaining on the tops of some of them. Hollows were raised into mounts, and mounts reduced into hollows. Less than a quarter of an hour completed this dreadful scene.

CURIOUS CUSTOM AT STRASBOURG.

At Strasbourg they show a large French horn, whose history is as follows:—About 400 years ago, the Jews formed a conspiracy to betray the city, and with this identical horn they intended to give the enemy notice when to attack.

The plot, however, was discovered; many of the Jews were burnt alive, the rest were plundered of their money and effects, and banished the town; and this horn is sounded twice every night from the battlements of the steeple in gratitude for the deliverance.

The Jews deny the fact of this story, except the murdering and pillaging their countrymen. They say the whole story is fabricated to furnish a pretext for these robberies and murders, and assert that the steeple of Strasbourg, as has been said of the Monument of London,—

"Like a tall bully lifts the head and lies."

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN.

The following is an extraordinary instance of the recklessness of sailors when in the pursuit of what they call pleasure. In the year 1779, a Mr. Constable, of Woolwich, passing through the churchyard there at midnight, heard people singing jovially. At first he thought they were in the church, but the doors were locked, and it was all silent there:—on looking about he found some drunken sailors who had got into a large family vault, and were regaling with bread, cheese, tobacco, and strong beer. They belonged to the Robust, man of war, and having resolved to spend a jolly night on shore, had kept it up in a neighbouring alehouse till the landlord turned them out, and then they came here to finish their evening. They had opened some of the coffins in their dare-devil drunkenness and crammed the mouth of one of the bodies with bread, and cheese, and beer. Constable, with much difficulty, prevailed on them to return to the ship. In their way one fell down in the mud, and was suffocated, as much from drunkenness as the real danger. The comrades took him on their shoulders, and carried him back to sleep in company with the honest gentlemen with whom he had passed the evening.