The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1875-08-21
A SAD PICTURE.
The .Son{,rich Isiand Lcpcrs and Their
Home.

| Home.
The horrible disease of leprosy is ex-
tending its ravages in spite of every
care of prevention. TIE island of
Molokai is set apart as a quarantine,
where the lepers are isolated as fast as
they are discovered, and the living, foci
OF disease thus segregated. The natives
seem perfectly reckless about the risk
OF contagion, and the gregarious in
the pipes, wear the clothes, and sleep
on the mats of lepers JUDGED, they
conceal the victims of the disease as
| long as possible, aud the government
officials have great difficulty in ferret
ING out the infected persons.
Lot US take rapid glance at the
| leper settlement of Molokai, which is
alike hospital and charnel- house
for there is no cure for the awful pesti-
lence. 1t is the duty of the island, on
the certificate of doctor that man is
q leper, to commit him to death in life
at Molokai. Here he slowly rots away
in terrible exile, for there is no re.
lease for him except the merciful hand
OF death. The agonized parting and
the woe of the friends as they cling to
the bloated limbs and kiss the glisten-
ing, swollen faces of those who are
exlled from them forever, are said to
be something almost heartrending.
There are no individual distinctions
among the sufferers. Queen Emma's
cousin, man of wealth, and Mr.. Rags
dale, the most influential and eloquent
lawyer among the half whites, share the
same doom as stricken Cinnamon and
laborers from the plantations. The
necessity is terrible, but no less a
necessity and, in the case of Mr.. Rags
dale, who gave himself up voluntarily,
the case was aggravated by the fact that
he is man of great accomplishments
and almost unbounded control over
his countrymen, one who, bad it not
been for his fearful disease, would |
have risen to very prominent position |
in state affairs.
Molokai, the island of exile, is a land |
of precipices, with walls of rock rising
two thousand feet above the sea in ex-
IRENE grandeur and picturesqueness,
but slashed, as in Hawaii, by gulches
opening from natural lawns down to
the eea. The road from the sea landing
is zigzag bride track, which winds
ever the face of the precipice, and this
abode of death is in all respects worthy
of the grim functions to which it is de-
voted. Three miles inland from the
|
hideous suffering, where science is una
BILE to grappie with despair where the
only business of the community is to
perish where there are husbandless
wives, wifeless husbands, children with
out parents, and parents without chill
dren, condemned to watch the loath- (
some steps by which each of their
doomed fellows glide down to death.
Most of the victims live in brown
huts, but the more wealthy ones have p,
white cottages, where every comfort is
provided for them. The hospitals, twelve d,
in number, are roomy aud we'll ar {
ranged, built on an airy height. In the {
center of the hospital square are the 4
and office buildings, where I
The statistics of the settlement are kept, (
and the leper governor holds his leper I
court-for all the officials, even to the {
doctor and the chaplain, are the VIC
inns of the disease. The rations of food
are ample, and the contributions of the
suffice to provide little lux
knives, toys, books, pictures, and work
ing implements and materials for
for the lepers become pau
oerized when they are sent into exile,
md no longer have any claim on tic"
6
The sensibilities of n's VISITOR are :
shocked when he -s>es the throngs OF G
Give IookinaIsdos, who shrink away
rom ths-1.z5nered hand, as if abascd at d
ha 4Eonght of what they are. But what 6
nall be said of the awful spectacles in v
he hospitals, wherein everything is il
ervaded with the sickening odor of the b
rave; where all around, crouched on &
heir mats and shivering with despair, Il
re seen the yet breathing corpses Of il
he poor wretches who leer for mo- "
lent out of their ghoul-llke eyes, and q
hen shrink into themselves again, car t,
,atures of life, masses of rotting flesh Il
18th but little semblance of humanity "
'hough the mystery of death which h
angs over the valley of Molokia dis 81
loses some of the more woeful features o.
the curse, it is pleasant to know that a
ne poor outcasts are az kindly cared a
,r as the resources of the government l
i'll permit. The most strenuous efforts W
re being made to stamp out the disease Sc
nd provide for the comfort of those tt
no are isolated. h