The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-04-08 00:00:00

THE "LENNIE."

the article to me, and --1
altered the original entry to and chest by saying that he had fallen about with Syria, and on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates;
• • Italian," and his former vessel the Carnarvon Castle, and her on the newly-made road. A
his wages £4 les. I wrote "shipped as boatswain." He Lord Coleridge told the jury that the
th e
evidence
rieneteaal or, if it still lurked in Eastern cities, its virulence had
as
apparently dwindled to the dimmest shadow of its
made me imitate the initials of the clerk to the Consul. Ile ancient terrible grandeur. The new outbreak, however,
did not say why he wanted the change made, but only told to threats was not sufficiently strong to be of im• shows much of the old and mysterious fierceness before
me to do it lie spoke in English. I left the articles on the portanoe, but he laid stress on the subsequent conduct which medical science for many centuries re, 'fled in despair.
table. On the next day the French man-of-war came along. of the prisoner in throwing the clothes which deceased There is no reason to expect that its ravage . 'ill be limited
side about twelve o'clock, and the steward boarded her. I had worn int% a neighbouring cottage, -While she lay to the Provinces of Turkey in. Asia. Both , 5,- ypt and in
had 8!i the distress flag up again on that day, but don't
almost unco ed, and upon his apparently callous way European Turkey the conditiehe in which the •I gue breeds
and spreads are still prevailing, with little mitigation since
know who put it up. The steward called me out of the
4
galley to help him put the boat out. The men from the speale the occurrence afterwards. He also,ana-
e..,
eera car ully the aryl ence of the surgeon, who was annually decimated by its attacks. Indeed, in the urkish the time when Cairo and Constantinople were almost
T
Feench vessel came on board and searched our vesseL ',saw i•
the big lance produced behind the boatswain's bunk I bad „more strongly of opinion at the trial than when before and Egyptian capitals and in the lesser towns of the Otto-
never seen it before. It may have belonged to the ship. I -the' magistrates that the injuries had been caused by man Dominions it has lingered- sometimes only,. suspected,
once saw Joe (Carcaris) with an old, big pistol, with two or kicks.mu .:
The Jury returned a verdict of guilty, but a and sometimes showing its malignancy for 9.-h:foment-as
mere barrels.
Mr Beard : That Would be a revolver. for believine that the essential conditions,. for its repro-
Mr strong opinion has since existed that the ow-- , much as in Bagdad. Happily, there is notelhe least ground
..demned man was innocent, as he constantly averred, tuction in Western Europe any longer exist. I'aZus we have
Witness: Ido not 'know what became of that pistoL Joe, of wilful murder—au opinion shared in by iln- chap. hardly more than a scientific interest in the-" Movement
the cook (Carcaris), had it in his hands. I saw the men from
lain, the Governor, and the Under Sheriff. On Satur- of a distant hut most deadly enemy There is reet much
the French man-of war come on board and search. They
day the chaplain wrote a most urgent letter to the more chance 'of an invaidon of England lii the-Plifresie than
found a pistol on the shelf of the boatswain's bunk, but I ,
don't know what becanie of it. It was the pistol held by Joe ` Home Secretary and to one of the county member& there is of the destruction of London •by tin earthquake like
the cook. From the beginning to the end of this matter I The latter saw Mr. Cross personally, but after corn- that 9f Lishen. . . . ... ..
was not hurt in any way. Nothing was said to me by any of municating with the Judge the Home Secretary de- No calamity, however, in the history of the human race
the prisoners. I used to 'wait upon the officers as second clined to interfere with the comae oi the law. has-produced so crushing an effect upon the imaginations as
steward. the
_gre_at espedernieeeef the -Plague. Historicarlitbretitee
- - ----"Th-o-niains many powerful representations of lemon's pesti-
Tue witness was occupied for sometime in identifying-the-, - - —7--
7.. lences among which the masterly narrative of Thucydides
various articles of wearing apparel, (no, found in the parcela
etließkirtillOE LIEUTENANT °Amply) _ I.( of course, the most artistic. Bat it has been questioned
taken from the ship into the boat by tie sit men.
1 t - • very reasonably whether the Athenian e2leleMececould have
Cros,exarninen by Mr. Woolf: I'mever stew the osetlin ea e. ,
t, e_ i i i- - .• ....... .. _
- been- identieat- with stint of °more modern times; and the
the Airiesneetrialr_arek,_ll4_ive_
Mail any of the men. I never saw him or theterate ilreeeff --Jelentenn."t- --Cetpletuals pictures of Thucydides seem to represent some other extiiwt
pistols on the deck; nor did I hear swearing at the men. 1 at Liverpool on Sunday evening by the Royal Mail scourge, as terrible, but different in kind. The Plague,
heard on the morning of the murder some one call out "ph, steamer Congo, and met with a very warm reception
oh, oh!" I could not say it was the captain. I had a On- hiwever, which, in the reign of Justinian extended its
from a large crowd on landing.—On Monday he was ravages over the whole of the Eastern Empire and
versation with the steward about setting fire to the ship. Presented with an address from the municipal autho- almost depopulated Constantinople has been carefully
When the six men found that the five were going to leave
the ship, and we could not go, the steward told use to take rities of Liverpool, and was afterwards entertained at described, and, allowing for the errors of nom scion-
some petroleum and put it where we could set fire to the luncheon by the Mayor and Mayoress. In reply to the tific observation, its symptoms are clearly recogniz-
s
deck. This was because we could not put some flags up, and toast of his health, Lieutenant Cameron said, that inle as- those of the disease which is now once again
menacing the Eastern frontiers of Europe. From that time
the lire would be a signal to be seen on shore. We should during his long journeyings in Africa ha had been sus-
, he said, let the vessel burn right down. I took some lorward almost down to the present century the terror Of
not tamed by the belief that the English public would not the Plague has been ever present in the South-Eastern
petroleum and threw it on to some sails. The men came
desert him, and he had found that this was true. EU ' corner of the Continent, and from time to tinge it has made
from their dinner, and, smelling the petroleum, locked up
stated that his discoveries had led him to the conclusion fierce onslaughts upon the West and even the North. Italy
the room where the sails were. .. suffered frequently and severely in the Middle Ages, and two.
that there exists in the centre of Africa a system -of-
Sir Thomas Henry (to Mr. Woolf): You did not ask the of the most fatal epidemics of which she was the victim
steward about that.
Mr. Woolf: Yes, Sir Thomas, I asked him today if he water communication which, by the addition of a canal have been made memorable by the genius of Boccaccio
thirty miles long, would be complete from the Congo and the polished art of Manzoui. In, the Seventeenth
. had any Conversation about setting the ship on fin, and he to Zanzibar. He believed that boundless stores of Century little had been done to exclude or subdue
denied it. wealth—agricultural and mineral -could be thusdevee the foe ; forty-five epidemics in a hundred - years
Witness: It was meant to act for a signal, as we could not loped, and when other parts of the world were worked have been enumerated. Our own country did not
leave or hoist flags. out, that we might look to Africa for new granaries, escape. Saveral times in the early part of that cen-
tury some Dutch vessels engaged in the Levantine trade had
Renken, in reply to Sir Thomas Henry, said: "The wit- new coal mines, and new materials for manufacturers, brought the contagion to Holland, whence it spread to the
ness has spoken the truth, and so have I. There's one Lieutenant Cameron afterwards went to the Exchange English ports, and again and again the infection swept off,
thing, though. He told use what be had written in the first news room, where he was loudly cheered. i -`,...i - :.,-- i as the popular calculatio ran, a full filth of the popula- -
note put in the bottle, and said, 'Charley, don't tell any n'
1-'-7 -%- ' -1-- • tion of London. But at the close of the Civil War the pesti-
one.' lence seemed to have wholly died out, till in the hot, nn-
Witness: Yes, that is true. Mr. Poland did not ask me On Tuesday evening Lieutenant Cameron arrived at wholesome summer of 1665, after five years of anti-Puritan
aeout it. While I was writing the notes, Henken called me Shoreham, near Sevenoaks, of which parish his father licence, Pepys writes : "This day, much against my will,
to go to the galley, and I said I could not, ae I was busy. He has been vicar for many years. Tea was provided in I did in Drury-lane see two or three houses marked with a
then came into my bunk, and I was obliged to tell him what
at the railway station to meet the gallant wrote there, which was a sad sight to me, bein the first Mr. Mildmay's park. Crowds of the parishioners red cross upon the doors, and `Lord have mercy upon us '
g
I was doing. I don't think he said anything to the others assembled
about t. of the kind that to my remembrance 1 ever sa*." This
.•
1 I explorer, and a complimentary address was presented. was the beginning of the " Great Plague," which found
Me Poland: He saw me writing the message,
to him on his alighting from the train. The whole its historian in Defoe. In one week 7,166 persons were
i his evidence having been read over by Mr. J. W. Hum- party then, headed by the band, proceeded to the parish killed by the pestilence in London, and the entire number
phreys, the Chief Clerk, and interpreted by Mr. Cartwright,
church, where a thanksgiving service was held. The of deaths in the year within the Bills of Mortality reached
Mr. Poland said that that was his case. the enormous total of 68,000 out of a population of half a
aged vicar, however, was unable to take a part in the
Mr. Woolf: I shall now ask you, Sir Thomas, to discharge million. Since that time no general visitation of the Plague
service, except as a spectator,
Moms. I venture to say that there is no evidence against has been known in England or In the neighbouring countries
him which would justify a magistrate in committing. of Western Europe. Yet in 1712 it attacked Copenhagen ;in
Sir Thomas Henry : I agree with you, Mr. Woolf. Do you 1720 Marseilles, where it slew more than half the inhabitants ;
hear that, Mr. Poland? in 1771 Moscow ; in 1813 Malta; in 1816 Calabria; in 1818
I was most anxious to get are the chief known instances of the appearance of the
, Corfu , and in 1819 there was an outbreak in Silesia. These
Mr. Poland : Yes Sir Thomas.
at all the facts, and upon the steward's evidence it appeared Plague in modern times outside the dominions of Turkey and
that Mores was one of the men who came down into the
cabin. But the witnesses Lettes and Petersen, both of whom Egypt.
It appears, therefore, that as modern life has been civi-
were originally prisoners, deny this, and say that Mores was
Used, and, above all, as it has been cleansed the power of
at the time ill in his bunk. No doubt it was proved also by
the Plague over the human organization has been steadily
the steward that he had given Moros medicine the previous
lessened. The material and social condition of the countries
day, and it is possible that, hearing the disturbance on deck, in which the pestilence has not ceased to be feared is not
he got up and afterwards came down into the cabin. I can- very different, in those points which have relation to bodily
not, therefore, carry the case further against him. health, from London or Milan hi the Seventeenth Century, as
Mores was then discharged. Defoe and Manzoni have represented them. Plague itself is a
Mr, Beard: With respect to the boy Angeles? maglignant fever analogus to typhus, with a peculiar In.
Sir Thomas Henry: Ills case is not quite the same. I fiuence over the lymphatic system; and, as Captalnlealton
and Dr. Sutherland in their Report on the sanitary condition
don't wish to prejudice his case; but he was one of those
who left in the boat. of Mediterranean 'stations have pointed out, a less
virulent but cognate disease is always present in parts of
Mr. Beard: Under threats, I contend. Turkey and Egypt, showing itself in fever symptoms, with
Sir Thomas Henry: I must commit him. erupti3ns of carbuncles, boils, and so on. The persons sub-
Mr. Beard: Very well. ject to this sort of distemper are weakly in constitution,
Mr. Woolf and Mr. Beard, through the interpreter, ad- dwelling in the midst of damp and dirt, and generally of
visaed their clients to reserve their defence. This they gross habits of living. When the true Plague, stirred in
agreed to do, all stating that at the proper time they would its ancient "source and seminary," to quote Gibbon's
makes statement, phrase, in the Egyptian or Syrian cities, by some
d. such accident as an unhealthy season, extends its
Sir Thomas Henry (to Renken) : You are not defende
infection, it fixes itself where a population shown
Do you wish to make a statement? You are not bound to to be prepared for its reception by the prevalence
do so, and whatever you say will be written down, and mayi
of the lesser diseases already mentioned is gathered
be used igainst you at your trial.
• together. On the whole, it may be said that in no Western
Renken (crying) said: I have spoken the truth all along, citied do such favouring conditions invite its visits. Though
Sir. Those (pointing to the first five prisoner) are the guilty; much remains to be fore in our own and in neighbouring
men, and it is very hard I should be kept here in prison. I countries by way of sanitary improvement, what has been
Sir Thomas Henry : There is evidence that you called one done, if we compare the life of our contemporaries with
to the men warning them that the ate ward was coming up those of our ancestors of two centuries ago, marks a surpris.
through the skylight. I must leave a jury to decide the case lug advance The worst rookery in modern London could
against you. not as a nursery for the propagation of the pesti-
Henkel' : Very well, Sir, I will say lam innocent. lence be matched with the chief cities of the East.
Moreover, the collapse of the nervous powers which
Sir Thomas Henry: Do you wish to call witnesses? is the especial characteristic of this frightful ma! icly
Renken : No, your Worship, is favoured by. terror and helplessness, and an active-
Sir Thomas Itenry said he should not commit the prisoners minded modern community, which in the worst event would
for trial to-day as the Sessions would be commenced next energetically combat even the Plague with all the resources
Monday, and the case could not be tried then. A formal of medical science, cculd-no more be reduced to the despair
remand was then granted, and the witnesses will be bouud -of the Oriental when he finds himself face to face with the con-
over on the next occasion Ihe prisoners were, as usuel, tagion than it could be terrified, as the people of London were
we are sorry to say, hooted as they were removed in the in 1665 by the ominous flaming of an unexpected cemet in
van the sky. Thus in modern England —indeed, through-
out Western Eitrope generally neither the material
nor the moral conditions exist which invite the inroads of
the Plague. The limits of the region within which this
disease has &tendency to become epidemic are historically
known and mapped out by science, and while its advance
beyond them is not to be apprehended unless civilisation
should suffer some local check, it must surely be possible to
beat it back still further and finally to eradicate it.

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But 4

ciple he took one of the saplings by the stem
close to the tigress, and snapped it so as to throw
the young tree right across toe animal's back. She
was, however, protected by some depression in the
ground, and only growled. The Prince did not like to
tire at an unseen object, and 44 elephants could not
be got closer. Projectiles werfsWled into the grass—
oranges„soda and Apollinaris water bottles, and other
materials. But she would not st:r. Sir Jung showed
himself equal to the occasion. He seized the hunting
hat of the Nawah behind him, and threw it down in
the grass near the tigress. That would not do, so he
seized his own white pith cap, and flung it almost on
the animal's head, which had such an effect that out
she came, made straight at the nearest part of the
ring, clawed her way through the convulsed and
agitated throng of elephants, and then out of sheer
wAntoness turned arid bit the neati-,t in the stern.
She made off,- but in front was the nullah full of water,
and she hesitated to &Ala across it. The Prince was
close behind, and as she sprang in at last he got a good
Lew; fired, and struggling convulsively, the tigress
expired. Thus in less than an hour a leopard and
tigress Were killtd close to our camp of Mahalleea.

Icit—ltterat-n—re J view i fired,