Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1865-08-17
The Cholera.
[From the N. Y. Trihnne |

At this moment all Western Asia pnd
Southern Europe are panicstricken by the
terror Of sudden death. That strange curse,
which, as the Red Death the Black Plague,
the Yellow Fover, has so often swept like
fire around the world, and in all its Protean
forms is still one Pestilence, has again arisen
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 firmly
in Egypt, that its return every ten yearsis as
certain as the daily rising ofthe sun. Nile,
with his overfowing waters, cannot cleanse
the land. Even the religion Of Mohammed
has become the protector of disease, and
this year the Cholera first appeared among
that immense throng of Pilgrims which
annually journeys through Egypt to Nee ca
and Medina. These poor people live in
dirt, for though the law Of the Prophet
requires frequent ablutions, they seem no
cleaner for its observance than the Arabs in
the desert, who, for want Of water, perform
the sacred washngs with sand In three
days tho Cholera slew four to six thousand
pilgrims in Mecca and Medina. 1t pursued
the survivors on their homeward flight, and
the stagnant canals, the crowded roads,
we're 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 upward
Of four hundred people perished in one day
Thus it ravaged Egypt till about the middle
Of July, when the mortality, though still
great, seems to have decreased OF its
course since we are not fully informed, but
it seems to be spreading along the Medter
ranean coast; it has penetrated Sicily,
established itselfin Genstantinople, 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, filthiness
aud recklessness Of the world for its accem.
plices. Eugene Sue, in his greatest novel,
refers forcibly to the apparent progress of
the Cholera, at the rate of a mans daily
march. But it will travel faster in 1855
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
land; it crawls along the sewerage, and
creeps from street to street with the beggar
1t is this mode of transmission that make.
its progress so difficult to stop, yet because
of this it is not useless to try the effect Of
all neutrality-suspicious. If this pestilenc,
were poison in the air, we might abandon
all hope of controlling it, and idly await
like the Mohammedan fatalist, the mys
terious punishment of God. But we know
whatever be its primal cause, that it origi
mates in countries which are the sewers o
the world; that everywhere filth and toulnes
are its allies, and cleanliness its creates
enemy. Our duty is therefore plain. 1
Europe cannot stop the pestilenee, ant
precedents give little reason to suppose it
the Cholera may reasonably be expected il
America in the Autumn or Spring. New
York, with Its immense foreign commerce
|, is not easily defended, and in its presen
condition cannot be. We dare not trus
entirely to the quarantine; the outwerks o
fort are useless if the enemy has allies il
the citadel, and the Five Points, the Sham
,, bles, and the Markets, are even nowr rip
for the embraces Of the plague We soun'
, no unnecessary alarm. No one can douh
+ that preparation is demanded, and tha
even If the Cholera should never come, a
. the elements sfdisesse are exhaling fror
a our cutters. The street-sweepers shoul
: not always be kept ON Broadway and th
Fifth ave.-let them 90 where they ar
imperatively needed, inte Baxter-st., an
Pearl-st., and all the crooked alleys Of th
Five Points Make the city clean, an
+ leave the rest to Providence. 1t may
!, well for our officials to remember that thos
whe frem carelessness or greed, invite th
J.. Cholera, may be obliged to receive in the
, homes the fatal guest, as the first victim
>, the guillotIne was--itS inventor.