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whose bodies they are appointed to search do die of the infection, or of what other diseases, as near as they can."
"That no searcher during this time of visitation be permitted to use any public work or employment, or keep any shop or stall, or be employed as a laundress, or in any other common employment whatsoever."
It will scarcely be believed that the functions and character of the searchers continued unchanged until they were swept away by the Registration Act of 1836. John Tilley, Clerk to the Parish Clerks, in giving evidence before the Select Committee on Parochial Registration in 1833, states that "the office of searcher is confined to two old women, generally paupers, who are legally entitled to ask a fee of fourpence, and on their hearing from the parish clerk that there has been a death in any house, they go and demand a sight of the body. Being very needy people they are open of course to any fee that may be given them to dispense with their office altogether. Instead of fourpence if they get one shilling or half-a-crown they go away without looking at the body."
Information collected in such a manner was, of course, bound to be highly inaccurate, and the Bills are unfortunately of very little value for modern statistical purposes. Apart, moreover, from error arising from the ignorance and venality of the searchers, there is evidence that the figures were at times deliberately falsified by the parish clerks in order to conceal the ravages of epidemics. De Foe, for instance, asserts that for weeks after the pestilence had commenced, the deaths were ascribed to other causes, and, when further concealment became impossible, they were systematically understated. He and others estimate that the total number who died of the plague was above 100,000, whereas, according to the Bills, it was but 68,590. The searchers and parish officers were frequently bribed in order to avoid the shutting up of the house, which was compulsory where a death from plague had occurred. The truth of this statement is borne out by the enormous increase which the Bills show of deaths from causes other than the plague. Occasionally, also, a clerk failed to make his weekly return, for which offence he was liable to be fined by the Lord Mayor the sum of one shilling.
