about midday
They seemed in no hurry to extend the field of their operations , and did not come beyond the central part of London all that day . It is possible that a very considerable number of people in London stuck to their houses through Monday morning . Certain it is that many died at home suffocated by the Black Smoke . Until about midday the Pool of London was an astonishing scene . Steamboats and shipping of all sorts lay there , tempted by the enormous sums of money offered by fugitives , and it is said that many who swam out to these vessels were thrust off with boathooks and drowned . About one o'clock in the afternoon the thinning remnant of a cloud of the black vapour appeared between the arches of Blackfriars Bridge . At that the Pool became a scene of mad confusion , fighting , and collision , and for some time a multitude of boats and barges jammed in the northern arch of the Tower Bridge , and the sailors and lightermen had to fight savagely against the people who swarmed upon them from the riverfront .