The New Orleans daily Democrat., 1878-10-30
THE BLACK DEATH.
THE TERRIBLE RCOUEsGE OF TEE
FOURTEENTH CENTURY,
Dfffes mep0pnfated-NatIOns Panic stPIckr
sn-ssh, GOO People Ble I'm One city I'm
Six BH0Rths-An Appalling Record of tine
Devastation of the Plague,

c5ttttt Ill hStt ttl1u ltuIopb from blIn6 10 LED
in the fourteenth century OF all the plague
that have swept the earth none ever were s
| horrible as that Tt desolated the lands
touched; 1t left an inheritance of terror Il
the minds OF generations Of descendant
from the few who survived it; 1t merited n
other appelation SO well as the frightful on
by which it was then known, and Is still re
membered. China Is said TO have been III
bir,tll-p place, and in that vast empire thirteel
millions Of the inhabitants were destroyed b.
land. Thence it iourneyed through Centra
| Asia, and in l546 reached the vicinity of thu
| Caspian Sea and the Bosphorus. Armenia
Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt and Greece were
swept swiftly by the all-devouring pestlence
| Fleeing fugtives carried on shiphoard. II
themselves and In their goods, to Italy, Ger
| many France and England, the seeds of tht
| dreadful infection Death was everywhere Ii
the DIR. Cities were depopulated. In Londor
| $4,000 pIague-striGken corpses are said to have
| been buried In single spot An ancient
| chronicler. narratlng its frightful ravages
| there, presents the following
THRILLING rEN-pICTURE.
"In It's maIignity it engrossed the i'll of all
other nialadies, and made doctors despicable
| OF d potency equal to death, 1t possessed it.
self OF all his armories, and was itself the
death Of every mortal distemper. The touch
yea, the very sight of the infected-~was
deadly: and its signs were SO sudden that
families seated In happiness at their meals
have seen the plague-spot begin to redden,
and have wildly scattered themselves for
ever.
''The cement Of society was dissolved by it's
mothers, who, when they saw the sign Of the
infection Oh the babes at their bOsOms. cast
them from them in abhorence Wild places
were sought for shelter; some went into
ships and anchored themselves afar off on
the waters. But the angel that was pouring
the vial had q foot on the sea as well as on the
dry land. No place was so wild that the
plague did not vislt-none SO secret that the
quick-sighted pestllence did not discover
none could fly that it did not overtake. 1t
was as II Heaven had repented the making of
mankind, and was shoveling them all into the
sepulchre.
''Justice was forgotten and her courts de-
serted, The terrified iailers fled from the fell
ons that were in letters; the innocent and the
within their prisons for safety: the grass
grew in the market places; the ctlttle went
moaning lip and down the fields, wondering
what had become of their keepers; the rocks
their nests in the mute belfries: silence was
universal. save when some infected wretch
was seen GlninOring alta window.
fFor time all commerce WAS in coftins
and shrouds. but even that ended. Shrift
there was none; churches and chnpels were
open, but neither priest nor penitent entered;
all went to the charnel-house. The sexton
and the physician were cast into the same
deep and wide grave; the testator and his
heirs and executors were buried from the same
cart into the same hole together. Fires be-
came extnguished, rs II it's element, too, had
expired; the seams of the saloress ships
yawncd to the sun.
"Though doors were open and Golfers u1l-
there was no theft: all offenses
ceased, and no crime but the universal woe of
The pestience was heard among men. The
wells overowed and the conduits ran to
waste; the dogs banded together, having lost
their masters and ran bowling over all tho
land horses pershed of famine In their stalls
Old friends but looked ut one another when
they met, keeping themselves far aloof
creditors claimed no debts, and courtiers per-
formed their promises; little children went
up and down, and numbers were
seen dead in all corners Nor was it only in
England that the plague so ragged; it travelled
over third part Of the whole EARTH like
the shadow OF an eclipse"
THE BLACK DEATH IN RUSSIA.
But, awful as were the ravages of the black |
leath IN England, they were infinitely worse
n Russia; for there it reached @ ready har-
5est OF victims already prepared for it by the
aids of ignorance superstition
,ad food, filth, and blind, unreasonng terror.
u 1349 this slow-mOving destroyer made it's
yay to Scandinavia, and either thence or from
}ermany. where it was raging, penetrated
nto Russia In the spring of 1852 and, accord
ng to Karamsn, ,Russias historian broke out
rst in the city of Pskow. So terribly did it
age there that ere winter came again
yer two-thirds of the inhabitants were In
heir graves. The condition Of that doomed
ity during that dreadful summer is thus re-
sted by an historian Of the period:
youths and old men, parents and children
lerous families entisely disappeared from
mong, the living in single day. Every
REST found in the morning thirty or more
orpses lying in his church, and Mass was
end over the whole at once. But the church
ards soon lacked space for new graves. and
oles were dug in the woods outside of the
tiles.
cat first covetous individuals were found
} wait upon those attacked, in hopes OF be-
oming possessors of their wealth; but as
'as communicated by the touch, Or in other
'ords, that the property of the victims con-
lined the sting OF death. even the rich looked ]
! vain for help; for even the son fled from
is father. There were. however, some indi- 1
lduals who showed the most extraordinary !
and self-devotion. They car
ed to the church not only their immediate
lends, but even strangers; assisted at their {
lnerals, and prayed for their souls with gem {
'ous fervor in the midst of the pestilential
,mbs. t
Numbers fled from the world, shutting |
up In converts and beQueathing
leir property to the Church; Or by feeding
ld clothing the poor they prepared them
ives Dy BOOu W0rkS 1OT tnelr passage to |
ernity. In short. 1t was believed that the
I'd OF the world was come and that no ono
ould survive"
FEARFUL DESOLATION.
In that beautifully simple record of heroic
devotion and atonement we find
parallel for some Of the most touching Incl
'nts of the progress OF our present scourge
the South. There, too, are noble souls who ]
fer themselves freely for the sake of others, G
n-stained ones. whose charity and good 8
orks' makes white their page In the book of
G recording angel. /
Though the black death In none Of It's
'mptoms resembled the yellow fever, ex-
pit in its malignity, yet. being like that ter
Die malady Of Orienta! origin, it fled before
g frost of the Northland. Winter brought
lief But ere that time Pskow and Novgo-
d had buried two-thrds Of their inhab-
snts Not one was left in Gluchow and L
eosersk and many smaller towns and cities u
sre entirely depopuatcd. Moscow suffered +,
ghtfully and among her dead were the Me-
opolitan, the Gar. and two of the sons and >,
brother Of the Gar Strange, sudden and h
rrlble was this all-destroying plague, like
ITO no other disease previously known. "a
in, like the stab OF knife, ran suddenly
Jfrh hno rt Oh - LI.I, 1.