6 - Chains of consumption: the bodies of the poor

Summary

A Mountebank in Leicester-fields had drawn a huge Assembly about him. Among the rest, a fat unwieldy Fellow, half stifled in the Press, would be every fit crying out, Lord! what a filthy Crowd is here: pray good People, give way a little. Bless me! what a Devil has rak'd this Rabble together: Z—ds! what squeezing is this! Honest Friend, remove your Elbow. At last a Weaver that stood next him, could hold no longer. A Plague confound you (said he,) for an overgrown Sloven; and who (in the Devil's name) I wonder, helps to make up the Crowd half so much as yourself? Don't you consider (with Pox,) that you take up more room with that Carkass than any five here? Is not the Place as free for us as for you? Bring your own Guts to a reasonable Compass (and be d—n'd) and then I'll engage we shall have room enough for us all.

Tale of a Tub, p. 46

As I said before, the good Management of the Lord Mayor and Justices did much to prevent the Rage and Desperation of the People from breaking out in Rabbles and Tumults, and in short, from the Poor plundering the Rich; I say, tho' they did much, the Dead Carts did more.

Journal of the Plague Year, p. 129

When the “fat unwieldy Fellow” makes his notorious complaint against the filthy crowd, he is reacting to the literal press of bodies always on display in the urban arena.