Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1869-07-23

ment. We hear hard, hoaise breathing,
harsh whispers and deep sighs from those
who can never again speak with their old
voices. The decay Of the vocal organs
Is almost the last stage OF the plague, and
seems the most terrible of all. The pa.
tient is usually by this time one mass of
corruption. What faces are turned to us
as we grope among the half conscious
sufferers! faces that look rs though they
had been hacked twenty times across
with broad axe, and each cash healing
had left horrid seam. Ears swollen TO
twice their natural size, raw looking and
bloody, while the enormous lobes, hang
ing nearly to the shoulder, ooze with a
sicken;ng pus. There are those with nos
trils slowly whitening away. some with
no nasal Mt all. only an ulcerous cavity
remains, too abominable To- be thought Of
fora moment. Fingers grown sharp at
the ends, sloughing the skin, shedding
the joints one by one. This man can lay
hold Of and remove toe without any
sensation. What is II that so paralyses
the sensibilities? Nothing but death it.
self. grasping the vitals. They are but
half alive, these lcpers, and carry their
own infectious corpse about with them.
One old man, sitting in malo, narrow
strip OF cloth about the lcins, is covered
from head TO foot with large, hard swell
lings. There is not vacancy enough be-
tween his thousand.and-o feshy hillocks
To lay the tip your finger. Yet he is
unconcious of any pain whatever. He
turns CHASTITY grin-supposcd to be a
smile-as he exhibits new mound just
making its appearance on one side him,
which is likely to crowd out few of the
older ones. The poor wretch looks more
like n horned toad polished down little,
than n man and brother.
1t is proof enough of their indifference
of the future rs well rs their contentment
with the present, TO find TINT once upon
time these dccaying remnants of hui
manity deliberately gave grand ball at
the hospital. There was general clean
ing ont OF disabled patients and brush
ing up of iinery, while the ball itself was
the great topic of conversation. Two or
three Young fellows who had few fin
gers left began to pick up tune or two
on native flutes made of bamboo. Though
rather melancholy in tone they were GER
tainly not inappropriate to the occasion.
The old, young and middlc-aged took
few turns in dark corner, getting their
stiffened joints Timber again, and so Ia
miliarizing their ungracefu forms with
the hollow mockery of the waltz. Night
came at last, the lamps famed in the
death chamber of the lazar house. The
wheeling voices, no longer musical, the
shuilling of half lf-paralyzed limbs over the
bare iloor, the wild sea moaning in the
night. all tended to make the scene most
uncarthly. The flutes began their shrill,
dolorous piping there was rushing to and
fro of wild figures. a bleeding, half
blind leper seized on another of the accurs-
ed beings, snatching her, rs it were, from
her grave, in all her loathesome clay, he
dragged her into the intoxicating whlri
of the dance. Naturally exciiable, heat
ed with exer,ion, intoxicated with the
very odors of death that pervaded the
hall ofthe jewellers, the mad crowd sway
ed and reeled through the unholy hours.
Finally, satiated with the very bitterness
of their unnatural joy, they called for the
grand national Huia-hala as hitting
close, in the thick atmosphere OF the
smoking and half extinguished lamps
they fed on tho yoluptuous abandonment
OF the maddened dance. till passion itseli
tainted with exhaustion.
Was it not dance ofdeath9 HAoLI.