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In every quarter shops were closed; and the manufactories were,

for the most part, deserted; the streets afforded a terrible

spectacle of sorrow and desolation; mendicants by profession, now

the smallest number, were confounded with the new multitude,

disputing for alms with those from whom they had formerly been

accustomed to receive them; clerks and servants, dismissed by the

merchants and shopkeepers, hardly existing upon some scanty

savings; merchants and shopkeepers themselves failing and ruined

by the stoppage of trade; artificers wandering from door to door,

lying along the pavement, by the houses and churches, soliciting

charity, and hesitating between want and shame, emaciated and

feeble, reduced by long fasting, and the rigours of the cold

which penetrated their tattered clothing; servants, dismissed by

their masters, who were incapable of maintaining their accustomed

numerous and sumptuous establishments; and the numerous

dependents upon the labour of these various classes, old men,

women, and children, grouped around their former supporters, or

wandered in search of support elsewhere.