They are indeed very necessary, especially in great Cities, that an account may be given of what diseases people die of, and that men may not have their lives shortned by violence, which appearing after their deaths, may be by them discovered; but these women have their _Cheats_ too, for notwithstanding they are sworn to give a true information to the Parish Clarks, yet money can so blind their eyes, that if a man be poysoned, they can bring it in that he died of the _French-Pox_; and though a house be visited with the sickness, yet if the Master thereof be unwilling to be shut up for loosing his trading, if he do but greaze them in the fist with some money, they will make the Pestilence to be surfeit, and the spotted feaver (which is little inferiour to the Plague) the Swine-pox, and sometimes the Meazles; nay once I know two of these Searchers that for money brought it in that the party who had the spotted feaver, dyed of nothing else but the tooth-ach: Thus you see that it is an undeniable maxime, that there is _Knavery in all trades_, people being now grown so villanous in their practises, that they make the very dead to be accessary to their Cheats. But to return to my story: The Shoomaker standing in the street, whilest the women came in, called to me, and bid me, if any of the Truncks were open, to lock them up, and throw the keys down to him; which I accordingly did, the fear of loosing his Mammon making him to dispence with any danger that might accrew to him by taking the keys. That night was my old Master buried, and a fortnight after (the Bedding and Cloathes being aired in the mean time, and I continuing sound) I was removed to his house, where I took special notice of his great care in performing my Masters will, and first for the three pounds that was given to buy the poor Cloathes, he bestowed the same on two suits for his own Boys, proving it to be the will of the dead it should be so; for (said he) they are poor who are in want, and his sons wanting Clothes, therefore they were to be reckoned in the number of the poor, and policy bids us this, always to provide for our own poor first. Then for the bread he ordered with the Baker so, that for every ten dozen, he would have a twelve penny loaf and yet were they made fifteen to the dozen, which over-plus above twelve he also took to himself, so that the penny loaves shrunk to the bigness of half penny ones, and only for the name there was no difference. I seeing how he had dealt by the poor, thought with my self that my Legacy would shrink also like Northern Cloath in the wetting, and my twenty pound, come to twenty shillings; but whilst I had cause for my self, I would not complain of his dealing by others, and therefore expected the event with patience.