Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1872-11-08
The Horse Disease In BOston--A Quiet
Sunday.

YESTERDAY will forever stand In the
calendar of quiet Boston as an epoch
memorable for the tranquility which
reigned supreme throughout the city.
The quietude of midnight was scarce
broken during the wakeful hours by
coach or horse.car; the streets were hush
ed into painful stiffness, disturbed only
here and there by the rattle of solitary
milk wagon or bakers cart, the rumble of
an ice team, or the mournful passage of
hearse and hack rolling slowly along on
their errands of mercy and death. SO
dull Sunday has not been experienced
since the aborigines worshipped the
Great Spirit upon the hills of the Tri.
mountain City; and all in consequence of
the prevailing distemper which has inval-
idated all of our equine servants, and
converted their stables into so many hos
pitals.
The community was reduced to the
last extremity of resorting to the origi.
nal means of locomotion, and all classes,
high and low, rich and poor, were for the
first time to this extent placed upon a
democratic footing. The motive power
OF the great lines of street railways stood
in their stalls with dropping heads and
trembling limbs; the cars were all housed,
cry stables were closed, presenting with
their accumulated stock of hacks, phae.
tons and buggies the appearance
of carriage repositories; drivers,
grooms and gentlemanly dressed own
ers gathered in knots in the
offices and harness rooms, or about
the stalls of the patients of veterinary
surgeons, who went their rounds on foot,
and with an air of mystery Sealt out in
finitesimal doses; Snafiles, the stable boy,
had his first Sunday off in many a week,
while the bellies and beauX, the staid mat
ron and sedate judge were alike compel
led to forego their customary. ride into the
suburbs. Men traversed the entire length
OF the main thoroughfares at certain hours
without meeting vehicle of any descrip.
ton.
fremont street, from the Providence
Railroad crossing to Dover street, pre-.
sented one long stretch of pavement, and
not a carriage in sight. The cross streets
were deserted save by church going peo-
pie who were not deferred by the storm
or the absence of public conveyances
from attending divine worship. The calls
of the milkman were like angels visits,
few and far between; while the conven-
tional pot of baked beans and hot brown
bread awaited the coming of pater-
famiias, the bakers horse, as well as
Others, being unfit for service. A few ice
carts were out and dispensed their cool.
ing loads to many feverish invalid.
The quick and the dead were alike
brought within the influence of the cpl
demic. Many funerals took place. when
it was found impossible TO obtain car.
riages for mourning friends, and corpses
70 l,nit laef II
followed only by their nearest relatives.
The appearance of horses on the streets
on Sabbath day is probably at least two
TO one in favor of the South End, as
numerical rule, but yesterday it was hard
to discriminate, so few being out upon
all our territory. The individual feeling
all day to those in the peculiarly resident
portion of Boston was that of dreariness,
extremely so, and engcndered by the raw
east wind, cloudy sky, depressing lack of
moving humanity in the popular avenues,
and withal promise from early dawn of
more rain, which was fulfilled ere the
close of day. These were the prime
features of Sunday, the 27th of October
With these were an endless number of
accessories which, one way or another,
affected almost very grade of humanity.
In the second class referred TO might be
enumerated; no private or public con-
veyance to the family sittings in the old
city parishes; scarcely milk enough for
table use brought to the houses; no ice;
short supply of coal; ditto of flour;
numberless disappointments by the
grocer and baker; absence of the
usual Sunday friends at the
dinner, tea-table and Sunday drawing.
room, and it is safe to say many house
hold was afflicted with fractions or blue
aterJdmaidS, whose stables the scourge
has visited, or who were losers by some
one else's failure to keep contracts. But
to the cause of all this Journal readers
have been kept acquainted with the visit
and spread of the distemper, which is
now by common acceptance called catar.
Ihal fever.
The wellbeing of the fire department
is all-important to the safety of the city,
and the greatest interest is therefore
manifested with regard to the amount of
injury done it by the prevailing epidemic.
The horses of the department were early
attacked, nearly fifty being at present
unfit for work; and as their places cannot
be supplied, active measures have been
taken to prevent the occurrence of any
calamity by fire. boston Journal, October