Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1865-08-16
THE CHOLERA.

At this moment al Western Asia and
Sout hern Europe are panic stricken by the
terror OF sudden death. That strange curse
which, as the Red Death, the Black Plague,
the Yellow Fever, has SO often swept like
fire around the world, and in its protene
forms is still one Pestience, has again aris-
en- as swift and as strong as of old. The
cholera has unexpectedly revealed itself In
the East and for the third time begins its
terrible westward march.
Egypt, breeder of so many monsters, IS
the mother Of this. Centuries of dirt and
degradation have rooted the plague so firm
ly In Egypt, that its return every ten years
is as certain as the daily rising of the sun.
Nile, with his oyerfiowing waters, cannot
cleanse the land. Even the religion of Mo
hamme1 has become the protector OF dis
ease, and this year the cholera first appear
ed among that immense throng Of Pilgrims
which annually journey through Egypt to
Mecca and Medina These poor people
live in dirt, for though the law Of the Proph-
ct requires frequent ablutiOns, they seem no
cleaner for its observance than the Arabs in
the desert, who, for want of water, perform
the sacred washings with sand. In three
days the Cholera slew from four to SIX thou
sand pilgrims in Mecca and Medina, 1t
pursued the survivors on their homeward
roads, were strewn with the dead. 1t
caught the Egyptian Arabs in their huts of
mud and straw decimated the dirty towns
and villages, and finally entered Alexandria
and reigned there in triumph. In Cairo up
ward of four hundred people perlshed in
one day. Thus it ravaged Egypt till about
the middle of July, when the mortality,
still great, seems to have decreased vi
its course since we are not fully informed
but it seems to be spreading along the Med
iterranean coast; 1t has penetrated Sicily,
established itself in Constantinor lie, and is
already as far west as Ancona, Italy.
Western Europe is alarmed and on the
defensive. But it is hard for the police of
an Empire to arrest this invisible murderer,
which has all the poverty, crime, flthiness
and recklessness of the world tor its accom-
plices Eugene Sue, in his greatest novel,
refers forcibly to the apparent progress of
the Cholera, at the rate OF man S daily
march, But it will travel faster in 1865
than it did in 1881. The Cholera is not
blown about on the winds. 1t passes from
man to man the ship sails with it over the
sea the steam cars speed with it over the
land; 1t crawls along the sewerage, and
creeps from street to street with the beegar.
| 1t is this mode of transmission that makes
its progress so difficult to stop, yet because
of this it is not useless to try the effect of all
sanitary precautions If this pestilence
were poison in the air, we might abandon
all hope of controlling it, and idly await like
theMohamedan fatalist, the mysterious pun
ishment Of God. But we know, what ever
be its primal cause, that it originates in
| countries which are the sewers of the world;
that everywhere filth and foulness are its
| allies, and cleanliness its greatest enemy.
Our duty is therefore plain. If Europe
cannot stop the pestilence, and precedents
give little reason to suppose 1t, the Cholera
may reasonably be expected in America in
the Autumnor Spring New FORK, with its
immense foreign commerce, is not easily de-
Tended, and in its present condition cannot
be- We dare not trust entirely to the qua
rantine the outworks of fort are useless
if the enemy has allies in the citadel, and the
Five Points, the Shambles, and the Mark
cts, are even now ripe for the embraces OF
the plague. We sound no unnecessary a
larm. No one can doubt that preparation
is demanded, and that even if the Cholera
should never come all the elements Of dis
ease are exhaling from our cutters. The
street-sweepers should not always be kept on
Broadway and the Fifth-ave.-let them go
where they are imperatively needed, In Bax-
ter-st., and Pearl-st., and all the crooked
alleys of the Five Points Make the city
clean and leave the rest to Providence. 1t
may be we'll for our officials to remember
that those who from carelessness or greed,
invite the Cholera, may be obliged to re-
ceve in their homes the fatal guest, as the
first victim of the guillotine was-its inven,
torn T. Tribune
The Issues of the Hour.