Nude celebrity news

So, how was economic situation during the 1665 plague in London. Eerily similar to ours. Here's Daniel Defoe account on it from A Journal of the Plague Year:

At the beginning of the plague, when there was now no more hope, but that the whole city would be visited  when, as I have said, all that had friends or estates in the country, retired with their families ; and when, indeed, one would have thought the very city itself was running out of the gates, and that there would be nobody left behind;  you may be sure from that hour all trade, except such as related to immediate subsistence, was, as it were, at full stop.

And, therefore, I descend to the several arrangements or classes of people, who fell into immediate distress upon this occasion. For example:

1.    All master workmen in manufactories: especially such as belonged to ornament, and the less necessary parts of the people's dress, clothes, and furniture for houses; such as riband weavers, and other weavers; gold and silver lace makers, and gold and silver wire drawers, sempstresses, milliners, shoe-makers, hat-makers, and glove-makers; also, upholsterers, joiners, cabinet-makers, looking-glass-makers, and innumerable trades which depended upon such as these; I say the master workmen in such stopped their work, dismissed their journeymen and workmen, and all their dependents.

2.    As merchandizing was at a full stop, for very few ships ventured to come up the river, and none at all went out;  so all the extraordinary officers of the customs, like-wise the watermen, carmen, porters, and all the poor, whose labor depended upon the merchants, were at once dismissed, and put out of business.

3.    All the tradesmen usually employed in building or repairing of houses, were at a full stop, for the people were far from wanting to build houses, when so many thousand houses were at once stripped of their inhabitants; so that this one article turned all the ordinary workmen of that kind out of business; such as bricklayers, masons, carpenters, joiners, plasterers, painters, glaziers, smiths, plumbers ; and all the laborers depending on such.

4.    As navigation was at a stop, our ships neither coming in nor going out as before, so the seamen were all out of employment, and many of them in the last and lowest degree of distress; and with the seamen, were all the several tradesmen and workmen belonging to and depending upon the building and fitting out of ships; such as ship-carpenters, calkers, rope-makers, dry-coopers, sail-makers, anchor-smiths, and other smiths ; block-makers, gun-smiths, shiphandlers, ship-carvers, and the like. The masters of those, perhaps, might live upon their substance; but the traders were universally at a stop, and consequently all their workmen discharged. Add to these, that the river was in a manner without boats, and all or most part of the watermen, lightermen, boat-builders, and lighter-builders, in like manner idle, and laid by.

I might be more particular as to this part, but it may suffice to mention in general, that all trades being stopped, employment ceased: the labor, and by that the bread, of the poor was cut off ; and at first, indeed, the cries of the poor were most lamentable to hear, though, by the distribution of charity, their misery that way was greatly abated. Many, indeed, fled into the country; but thousands of them having stayed in London, till nothing but desperation sent them away, death overtook them on the road, and they served for no better than the messengers of death ; indeed, others carrying the infection along with them, spread it very unhappily into the remotest parts of the kingdom.

Many of these were the miserable objects of despair, which I have mentioned before, and were removed by the destruction which followed. These might be said to perish, not by the infection itself, but by the consequence namely, by hunger and distress, and the want of all things; being without lodging, without money, without friends, without means to get their bread, and without any one to give it them, for many of them were without what we call legal settlements, and so could not claim of the parishes;

Let anyone who is acquainted with what multitudes of people get their daily bread in this city by their labor, whether artificers or mere workmen; — I say, let any man consider what must be the miserable condition of this town, if, on a sudden, they should be all turned out of employment, that labor should cease, and wages for work be no more.

This was the case with us at that time ; and had not the sums of money, contributed in charity by well-disposed people of every kind, as well abroad as at home, been prodigiously great, it had not been in the power of the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs to have kept the public peace : nor were they without apprehensions as it was, that desperation should push the people upon tumults, and cause them to rifle the houses of rich men, and plunder the markets of provisions : in which case, the country people, who brought provisions very freely and boldly to town, would have been terrified from coming any more, and the town would have sunk under an un-avoidable famine.

But the prudence of my Lord Mayor, and the court of Aldermen within the City, and of the Justices of peace in the out-parts was such, and they were supported with money from all parts so well, that the poor people were kept quiet, and their wants every where relieved, as far as was possible to be done.

Two things, besides this, contributed to prevent the mob doing any mischief: one was, that really the rich themselves had not laid up stores of provisions in their houses, as, indeed, they ought to have done, and which, if they had been wise enough to have done, and locked themselves entirely up, as some few did, they had perhaps escaped the disease better; but as it appeared they had not, so the mob had no notion of finding stores of provisions there, if they had broken in, as it is plain they were sometimes very near doing, and which, if they had, they had finished the ruin of the whole city, for there were no regular troops to have withstood them; nor could the trained bands have been brought together to defend the city, no men being to be found to bear arms.

But the vigilance of the Lord Mayor, and such magistrates as could be had, for some, even of the Aldermen, were dead, and some absent, prevented this; and they did it by the most kind and gentle methods they could lo think of, as particularly by relieving the most desperate with money, and putting others into business, and particularly that employment of watching houses that were  infected and shut up ; and as the number of these was very great, for, it was said, there was at one time ten thousand houses shut up, and every house had two watchmen to guard it, viz., one by night, and the other by day;  gave opportunity to employ a very great number of poor men at a time.

The women and servants that were turned off from their places, were likewise employed as nurses to tend the sick in all places; and this took off a very great number of them.

Well, this last part slightly differs from the current plague. Tending sick is way too risky. I think I saw a headline a few days ago saying that new onlyfans accounts are also rising exponentially.