Neglect of the stringent ordinances passed to protect life during the constant visitations of that fearful scourge the plague brought down the one universal penalty, committal to Newgate, upon offenders. Here is a long story about Stephen Smith, a fishmonger, whose door was by the sufferance of the warder broken open, and William Fenn, servant to Smith, who had already been indicted for offences committed during the several infections of that house, entered the house and brought a quantity of salted fish to the door for sale. Yet all the time Susan Wheelyer, a maid-servant of Smith’s, was shut up in the house infected with the plague. Smith had unlawfully abandoned his house. Fenn was apprehended and shut up with the late infected servant under a better guard. “I have committed the warder,” says Sir William Slingsby, who makes the report, “and commanded the fish to be carried in again, and the doors locked and guarded.... These proceedings I suspect to be done by the private directions of Smith.” The orders of the council on the above were prompt and severe. Stephen Smith was at once committed to Newgate, “there to be kept under strong bolts until further orders,” while William Fenn was sent to the pest-house, and a weight of iron placed on his heels to keep him safe and quiet there. It was ordered further, that the warders for their great neglect be put in the stocks before Smith’s house. Newgate, during the last great plague epidemic, received all offenders against the sanitary rules. These were enforced by the Middlesex justices, who were directed to be most careful for the relief of the citizens and for the prevention of the spreading of infection. Diligent circumspection was to be used to prevent the removal of goods or persons from London or Westminster to other towns and villages, or up and down the Thames; also to put pressure upon those belonging to infected families who refused to shut themselves up. Refusal to obey or neglect of these orders was to be visited with committal to Newgate and indictment at the next sessions.