July 10, 1665
July 10, 1665London had never smelled sweeter.
Pitman inhaled deep through both nostrils, something he would never do on a normal July day. On a normal day the heat would conjure all the city’s worst smells, and this July was hotter than most. The sun would beat on every house’s unemptied cesspit, drawing foul steam from the mounds. Fish heads would roll in the gutters, vegetables rot in piles, heated bodies give off rank odours through clothes rarely washed. Rats would nose among the garbage, cats and dogs piss against walls, hackney horses drop their piles alongside those of the sheep, cattle and pigs driven daily down thoroughfares to the various shambles.
Yet this July Londoners emptied the cesspits daily; no householder allowed garbage to collect before his door, for
