Star.
London, England, 1819-04-16 00:00:00

fHE PLAGV'Et.

..4.!

THEEDITOIL OF THE STliii:.:ll's'‘ j
• V •
Stir—Having very lately seen'in the pubitclitt
an extract of a letter from Brandenburg, a the
.instant, setting forth that a highly contagious dis-
temper had broken out at Grufenbergen, in Silesia,
.originating from the circumstance of a Manufac-
turer of that place having received several bales of
Cotton from Smyrna, one of which containing infec-
tion, having been distributed among the• workmen,
the disease spread rapidly, and several persons had
already fallen victims:to:its influence—and,,although
the symptoms are not stated, I have little .diaubt but
that it is the Plague that has made its aiPeirance, and
may furnish too conclusive evidence in opposition to
the singular opinion lately advanced in the:House of
Commons, that the Hague is not contagious.
The event, however, brings strongly to my recd.'
lection the surprise I have often felt, that this country
should have escaped the Plague for so long a period,
and can attribute it to no other cause, than to the in-
terposition of a kind PROVIDENCE, the more especially
when it is cczsidered, the peculiar mode adopted
some years ago on board the Lazarettos, at Stand-
ga:e Creek, with cargoes of cotton arriving from
Turkey, together with the immense quantities of that
article annually imported from that part of the world.
In alluding to Standgate Creek, it may not be ge-
nerally known that that spot was for many years
assigned for the reception of ships and-vessels
ceeding from countries visited by the Plague, or other
infectious disease or distemper, to perform quaran-
tine, and such goods en board the same as were sub-.
ject to contain contagion were immediately transferred
to old ships of the line, converted into Lazarettos,
where\they remained a certain period ; at the expira-
tion:of which they were generally re-shipped on board
the vessel from whence they had. been received, and
' she then proceeded to the port to which she may have
been destined.
In the year 1796, I returned from the llesliterra
nean in a vessel from Smyrna bound to London, and
performed quarantine at Standgate Creek : soon after
the vessel's arrival there, the cargo, consisting of
cotton in bales, was received on board a Lazaretto,
where, instead of each bale being emptied and its
contents sufficiently spread to admit the air, the only
process T observed, was merely opening the mouths
of the bales, which lay piled against each other, and
at the expiration of the term of performing quaran-
tine, which did not exceed fourteen days, the bales
were again closed, and put on board small craft,
which brought the. same up the river.
From this statement, -it must appear very clear to
any person, at all acquainted with the virulence at-
tached to so dreadful a disease as the Plague, that
bad there been any infection in this cargo,, the mere
ceremony of opening one end-of the bales could have
made no difference whatever—and were it not for
trespassing on the columns of your excellent Paper,
I could with great truth detail a melancholy case
that occurred some years since at Smyrna, which
would prove that the Plague has been dormant in a
much less package than a-bale of cotton for a consi-
derable- time.
For some few years last past Milford Haven has
bean used instead of Standgate Creek for. vest I),r-
-forming quarantine, and where I trust the quarantine
;system has been better regulated or conducted.