Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1865-10-27
The Arrival of the Cholera.

Many and distinguished have been the
foreign guests who have visited our shores,
and great has been the interest which their
movements through the country have
caused, but no party of capitalists, no heir
to empire, has ever been our guest, whose
coming has been more significant, or will
create greater sensation, than that of King
Cholera.
The announcement that the dread mon
arch of diseases is already among us will
be generally received either with dismay
or with i%ncredulity. Trusting too much
in the popular impression that the Indian
pestilence ragged only in the heat of sum.
mer, and forgetting that it made its first
appearance in this country, in 1854, dur
ing the month of February, breaking out
in New Orleans, and progressing north
ward with the sun, people on this side the
Atlantic have not been much alarmed at
Its swift march westward. They have
read the accounts of its Egyptian origin,
of its appearance in ConstantinOple, of its
successive leaps from Constantinople to
Malta, from Malta to Naples, from Naples
to Geneva, to Toulon, to Marseilles, to Port
Mahon, to Barcelona, with interest but
hardly with alarm. Even the apprehen-
sive feeling which the news of its appear
ance and its outbreak in Southampton was
very dim and distant-a foreboding of
some far-off future danger, but by no
means the sharp and terrified realization
of imminentperil. The appearance ofthe
Pestilence among us, all unprcpared as we
are to battle with it, will, therefore, cause
present dismay exactly in proportion to
our past carelessness.
1t is stated, on what seems the best medi-
cal authority, that the Cholera has made Its
appearance on the American shores. Ser
geant Stilfeet, of the Brooklyn police, is
IFS first victim. This officer was attacked a
few days since, with a disease which at
first bafied the physicians skill, but was
soon pronounced by Doctor North, the Pc
lice Surgeon, to be cholera. At last ac-
counts the man was still living, and, it wa:
hoped, convalescent, but the fact of hi:
illness had produced the greatest excite
ment in Brooklyn. Ameeting of the City
Board of Health had b0en held, and meas
ures taken to improve the sanitary condi-
ton of the CITY. New York has taken the
alarm, and under this stimulus something
may be done to clean the dirtiest city
except Chicago-in North America.
These facts should not startle or scare
u readers, but they should arouse
them to, prompt and energetic action
Whether or not the cholera has already
appeared among us, whether oil not it s7ilt
appear during the present year, no OBJ
server who has read the signs of the times
doubts that it will be with us, and in nc
merciful mood, in the coming summer.
And when, moving in It's westward orbit,
it reaches US, it will find royal welcome.
A pestilence that visits a nation imme-
diately after civil war has the widest and
most terrible sway. Among houseless
and homeless ones, among disbanded sol
diery, in the red trail of war, and
amid the social vices which war en-
genders, it reaps Il luxuriant harvest.
When we reflect upon the disorganized
and d~emoralized condition of the South,
on the inevitable restitution and depend
ence of the em%ancipated negroes, on the
social extravaganza, luxury and corruption
1his cod iif2 # f PfO SEC aGG PRESENTATION 'Rff2affR n,
On the spread of drunkenness among us, on
The squalid poverty of u city poor, and
On the mass of fostering filth that pollutes
-he streets and sewers of many cities, we
ire filed with the gravest apprehension for
Is to the coming pestilence. And the
most alarming feature of our danger is the
present reckless inaction of our authorities.
They are doing nothing to prepare US
lgainst the expected scourge, but, with mad
,rocrastination are putting off the work
until the disease shall burst in like a lion.
gingeverywhere and devouring whom it
will. By how much the more Indifferent
hey are now, by so much the greater will
their confused and helpless terror when
he time of trial comes. If the case of
Stilfeet be needed and the work
f preparation commenced at once it will
C thrice fortunate that it has happened.