Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1858-01-08
TERROR AND PEsrHENCE.

Acurious lawsuit has recently been going on
in Berlin. A rich gentleman, banker of that
city, was i'll of the smallpox, and having un-
Willingly communicated the malady to two
tradesmen working for him, they, considering
themselves as injured individuals, brought suit
against him. They demand compensation for
medical expenses and time lost. Let us, how
ever, do Berlin law the justice to admit that
the mere facts of the case do not constitute, ac-
cording to its provisions. grounds for q suit
According to the Prussian law, handed down,
perhaps, from the days of the Black Death Of the
Middle Ages, whenever anybody is ill, of an
infectious disease, he is obliged to have hung
up, outside his door, n tablet bearing an in
scription stating the fact.
We do not doubt that n great proportion of
readers, when this meets their eyes, will at once
reflect. What wise regulation Certainly
there Is pTima tdcie color Of strong common
sense in the rule. We reflect on the Instances
OF our own friends who have been at times un-
warily entrapped by infections disease, who
have been allowed to enter localities where il
prevailed, without being warned, and of the
Indignation which they have experienced in
learning that children have not been kept away
from vicinities where perhaps only the light
maladles peculiar to infancy prevailed. Ii
seems, ut once, that placards, conspieuously
posted in all parts of large city where infec-
uOus diseases prevail. would have the excellent
effect of warning all the world and of keeping it
away and out OF danger, and OF course be pro-
ductiye of inealculable benefit
That is to say, such would be the case if no
evil side-issues could spring therefrom. We
much fear that were this German arrangement
adopted, we should all live in a constant state
OF dread and of consciousness that the arrows
Of the pestilence were around us. which would
attract more of the deadly shafts than it would
drive away. There is an old Oriental story, to
the effect that traveller met on his road
W ful oil nd
asksd, . Who art thou, and whittier art thou
going" Il am the Plague replied the ap
partition, . and going to Bassora to kill ten
thousand men" Months flew by, when the
traveller again met the Plague and exclaimed
g False spirit thou did st lie for too have
been to Bassora, and 10. thirty thousand have
died of the scOurge." Friend replied the
Plague, . misjudge me not. indeed slew but
ten thousand, Fear killed the rest"
The making known the presence Of disease,
and OF bringing home its existence to every
one as the German law directs, would do but
little good Moreover, the vulgar taste for ex-
aggeTsting horrors and making a remarkable
piece Of occult business out of the fact that
humanity is subject to death, would soon turn
these warning tablets into something very
" ghOstly" indeed, We should see them with
death heads and crots bones In white letters
perhaps on black grounds; the whole designed
with q largeness and dissecting- -room-ineSs of
81 10 cLuinoHlIy cOnuuclNe 10 nAiDg tne mlnuS
OF the public on the fact that death is busy
around. And Fear and the Plague would
smite their thirty thousand
We have heard that in large prisons in 1882
where the prisoners were kept from knowl
edge Of the fact that the Cholera was Staying
its thousands in the immediate vicinity, none
Of them died. Physicians who don't care are
notoriously exempt from infection. We do not
mean to assert that there no real infection
per Sc. for that would be the height Of pre-
sumption and folly. But we do mean to say
that the Oriental legend which makes Fear
slay two, where the Plague slays one, is
founded on facts. We know as yet too little Of
the subtle workings Of those mysterious pow
ers, the mind and the nerves, to say why it is
We only know that it is the inscrutable cloud
land which lies beyond the explored limit of
science. and into which We gaze marveling at
its phenomenon, the children in Tieck's
Story sat and gazed beyond their garden into
the realm of the Elves. After all, all of the
nice little thoughtful arrangements which
American travellers on the Continent are wont
to praise so highly, are not all for the best
PAiI. BHklstiH.