Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-10-20

The PLAGUE IN LoNDoN.-We copy the
following extract from the Home Journal in
relation to this fearful scourge Of the human
race which at various periods of the worlds
history has swept like the Bosom of destruc-
ton over the cities of the Old World. The
Journal vouches for the credibility of its cor
respondent, but the news is so terrible that
we hope it will be found to be exaggerated.
One hundred and fifty years since, more or
less, the infection Of the plague was brought
TO this city from Alexandria, in a chest of
clothes. Half of London persisted with this
fearful contagion. The bodies were carried
out and buried in deep pits in those fields
which now lie under Argyle street and its
immediate neighborhood. This Plague, it is
said, has now been turned up by the spade,
and has begun to ravage London. Impossi-
bic as this may seem, the surgeons and ply
sicians say positively that London is not suf-
fering much from the cholera that it is a
contagious disease which has broken out in
this neighborhood, and that it is rapidly
spreading.
1t would appear that in cutting through
Argyle street, it was carried rather deeper than
ordinary, and that bones of the old victims of
this fearful disease were turned up by the
workmen, many of whom were taken i'll and
died suddenly. Children, also, who had
come and played with these bones, sckened
and persisted Moreover, it was noticed that
those who came in contact with either the
workmen or children sickened and died, in
most cases within few hours. The disease
increased. Clever physicians said that it was
decidedly not the cholera. The disease now
spread rapidly, and in week from the time
at which it broke out, it had completely raw
aged the streets in Soho and its immediate Vi
cinity at the present moment, Poland street,
Argyle street, and others, are closed against
all passers. Half the shops in Regent street
are shut up. The remainder are rapidly clos
ing. At two o'clock in the day, scarcely a
dozen persons may be met with in that great
thoroughfare. In those streets which the dis
ease is most speedily depopulating, the dead
bodies are placed in the open air, Immediately
that life has departed from them, so great is
the fear of contagion. l have seen i'll two
instances, half dozen bodies being carried
off in black sacks, like bales of goods, for
burial. You will easily judge how great
fright this has created. Every one who is
able to do so, has fed London, generally at
this time just emptying, is now half depopu-
lated Three days since, William Vincent
Wallace ran away. He is not man easily
frightened. Ask him and he will corroborate
what | have told you, as he must now be in
New York. Business is at a complete stand
still. Nothing is doing. Amusements for
the time being have completely closed.
Physicians say that this is undoubtedly the
Plague. The symptoms occasionally vary
from those which are reported to have accom-
panied it, when, in the reign of Charles H.,
it swept off one half of London. No medi-
cal means have as yet availed to stop it. 1t is
propagated by contagion, and is sirgularly
speedy in its effects-surpassin even, the
speed with which the cholera, on its first APP
pearance, slew its victims.