Was it the poor who carried this disease? The lord mayor tried to restrict the movements of the “Multitude of Rogues and wandering Beggars that swarm in every place about the City, being a great cause of the spreading of the Infection.” Were animals the culprits? In the summer of 1665, the authorities called for the immediate killing of all cats and dogs. Orders went out to Londoners to kill “all their dogs of what sort or kind before Thursday next at ye furthest.”6 Thousands upon thousands of cats and dogs were killed. The result was to send the rat population soaring.
