Weekly North Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1850-1858, 1853-08-31
YELLOW FEVER AT NEW ORLEANS. /

report the interments in all the City cemeteries for
the week ending at on the 20th at 1884 of which
1896 were from yellow fever. The report exhibits
an increase of deaths over the previous week of SO
from the fever, and this notwithstanding the con-
stantly reducing population. The total number of
deaths for the past four weeks from fever was $780,
The weather was unusually wet, and the authori-
ties, in hope of staying the dreadful rasages had
dered tar barrels to be burned at night and cannon
to be fred.
The Howard Association was exertng itself to the
utmost to relieve suffering and to bury the dead.
New York has contributed $50 600, and Philadelphia
Baltimore, Richmond, Petersburg, Charleston, and
other places smaller sums, to be applied to the relief
of the suffering in New Orleans.
We copy from the New Orleans Crescent of the
18th the following sketch of the horrors of the pes
thence:
"DowN AMONG THE DEAD MEN, To verify the many
horrible reports of the doings Of the dead, the
other day visited the cemeteries. In every street
were long professions tramping the solemn music
of funeral marches. In the countenances of plodding
passengers were the lines of anxiety and grief and
many door was festooned with black and white hang
ngs the voceess witnesses ofwaiing and of sorrow.
On the one hand slowly swept the long corteges of
the wealthy, nodding with plumes, and drawn by
on another the hearse Of the citizen soldier, prece
ded by measured music, enveloped in warke panop
ly, and followed by the noisy tread of men under
arms while there again the pauper was trundled a.
long to his long home ricketty cart, with boy
for driver, who whistled as he went, and swore
careless oath he urged his mule spawned horse
to trot making haste with another morsel contri-
buted to the grand banquet of heath. Now among
the steeples was heard the Ginning of the bells of
Ghoues up there, minglng their hoarse voices as in
chorus of graduation the ranks of fallen NOR
ality. Anon from some lowly tenement trilled the
low wall of mother for the child of her affections
while from the opposite burst the song ofsome
low bacchanAl mngling ribaldry with sentiment, or
swearing prayer or two, as the humor moved him.
The skies wore a delusiye aspect Above was all
cloudless sunshine, but little in keeping with the
black melancholy that enveloped all below. Out
along the highways that lead to the cities of the dead
and still the tramp of funerals knew no cessation.
Up rolled the volumes of dust from the busy roads,
and the plumes of death carriages nodded in seeming
sympathy to the swaying expresses of the swamp,
enveoped in their dun appareling of weeping moss
fit garniture for such a scene
At the gathering points carriages accumulated and
vulgar teamsters as they jOstled each other in the
press mingled the jest with the rbald oath no
sound but proane maledicton and of riotous mrth
the clang of whip thongs and the rattle of wheels.
At the gates, the winds brought intimation of the
corruption working within Not puff but was laden
with the rank atmosphere from rotting corpses. In
side they were piled by fftes exposed to the heat
of the sum- swollen with corruption, bursting their
coffin lids, and sundering as by physical effort
extending their rigid limbs in every outre attitude
What feast of horrors Inside, corpses piled in
pyramids, and without the gates, old and withered
crOnes and fat huXter women, retting in their own
grease, dispensing ice creams and confections, and
brushing away, with brooms made of bushes the
green bottle-fies that hovcred their dainty inhal
atoms from the green and fostering corpses. Mammon
at the gates making thrift outside by the hands
of his black and sweating minions, that rendered
sweetmeats and cooling beverages to the throngs Of
mourners or of idle spectators, who, inhaling the
fumes of rottng bodies, already heaved the gorge !"
while Within the King of Terrors held his Satur-
malta, with crowd of stolid laborers, who as they
tumbled the dead into bitches, knocked them "about
the mazzard" =" and swore dread oaths, intermingled
with the more dreadful sounds of demoniac jollty.
Long bitches were dug across the great human
charne. Wide enough WERE they to entomb legion,
but only fourteen inches deep. Cofns laid in them
showed their tops above the surface of the earth.
On these piled dirt to the depth of foot or more,
but loosely, that the myrads of flies found entry
between the loose clods down to the cracked seams
of the cons and buzzed and blew there their ouaria
creating each hour their new Matched swarms.
But no sound was there of sorrow within that
wide Gehenna Men used to the scent of dissolution
had forgotten all touch of sympathy. Uncouth Ia
borers, with their bare heads stood under the bro
anon they would encounter an obstructing root or
stump would swear hideous oath, remove to anoth-
er spot and go on digging as before. Now and then
the mattock or spade would disturb the bones OF
some former tenant of the mould forgotten there
mid the armies of the accumulated Victims and the
sturdy laborer with gibe would hurl the broken
fragments on the sward, growl forth an energetic
d-n, and chuckle in his excess of gee Skull bones
were dug up from their long seputure with ghasti'
ness staring out,
"From each lack-lustre eyeess hole"
without elciting an "Alas, poor Yorick," and with
only an exclamation from the digger, Of room fol
your betters!"
Economy of space was the source of cunning cal
| culation in slowing away the dead men. Side by
side were laid two of gigantic proportions, bloateo
| by corruption to the size of Titans The central
projections of their cofns left spaces between then
at their heads and heels. This was too much room
to be filled with earth. How should the space bt
| saved? Opportunely the material is at hand, for
| cart comes numbering in, with the corpses of mo
ther and her two little children Chuck the children
in the spaces at the heads and heels of the Ttans
| and lay the mother by herself out there alone!
comrade for her will be found anon and herself ano
babes will sleep not the less soundly from the un
| wonted contact
The flme rises up in deathly exhalations from tn
accumulating hecatombs of fast coming corpses
Men wear at their noses bags of camphor and odor
GUS spices-for there are crowds there who have M
business but to look on and contemplate the vas
congregation of the dead. They don't care if the!
die themselves-they have become SO used to tn
reek of corruption. They even laugh at the rioting
of the skeleton Death, and crack jokes in the horr
atmosphere where scarcely they can draw breath 10
utterance. Tes.>
The stoical negroes too, who are hired at five dol
lars per hour to assist in the work of intermen,
stagger under the sitting fumes, and can only b
kept at their work by deep and continued potatlon
of the fire water" They gulp deep draughts Q