Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1878-09-27
The DeplOrable Condition of Memphis


Moved by an incorrect report that the
Associated Press reports were eXaggcr-
ating the deplorable state of affairs in
Memphis, Tenn, the appeal of that
city, in one of its recent issues said:
ITO lose over 1,200 men, women, and
children in twcnty-seven days, out of a
population of 5000, white and black,
and to be expending over $4,000 for
1,200 nurses and forty doctors, and for
medicine, and food for more than g.
600 sick and 10000 INDECENT, is to us a
sad reality, enough to move even a
stole to tears. But besides this, there
come the tales of individual sorrow; of
whole families swept away in a week,
leaving not even one of the name; of
nurses dying at their posts; of priests
and ministers and good sisters follow
ing those they succored so fast as to
appall the stoutest heart and give us
pause amid the general wreck and ruin.
No pen can do these scenes and sights
justice; no tongue eXaggerate them.
Lisping childhood, hoary and venerable
old age, the vagrant and the merchant,
the man of God and the unbeliever, all
are taken, claimed alike by the awful
pestilence. The cry of the fatherless is
heard every hour, claiming the pity,
the sympathy, and the tears of the
most hardened veteran. In this office,
as we write, there are but two left of
all who month ago were employed in
the editorial, counting, and composing
rooms, and our pressman is down with
the fever Strangers to the Office, as to
a. In hue ott ,f
fairs, while the only editor left on duty
alternates, through sixteen hours day,
between his desk and case. This is
our personal measure OF the dreadful
epidemic, and surely it is a sad one.
Our experience is one we will never for
get, and it is common one. The fifth
epidemic we have passed through, this
surpasses them all in the horrors it has
uncovered. Parents have des 7rted
children, and children parents, hus-
bands their wives, but not one wife a
husband. Men have dropped dead on
the streets, while others have died neg
lected, only to be discovered by TIE
death-spreading gases from their bodies.
Ministers of the Gospel, carrying mes
sages of peace, hurrying from house to
house, have had their weary feet ar
rested and their work staid by the pes
thence that walks in the noonday as at
night. The priest, administering the
extreme JUNCTION, and the bride of
Christ, wiping the death-damp from the
forehead of those whose friends and
kin-folk are far away, are almost para
lyzed in the sacred act, and die even
before we know they are sick. The bus
Of ha 10 of IN
sick, the burial of the dead, and the
care of the needy living. The last
words of those who are well are at night
farewells to the dead, and the first in
the morning: who lives and who has
diedP' All day, and every hour of the
day, this question is repeated and the
heart sickens at the reports, and the
soul grows weary over the repetition.
And yet there is no relief nor any re-
lease. Worse and worse the epidemic
has grown, until to-day it has capped
the climax, and the hearts of the brave
men who have stood in the breach are
blanched with fear, with a dread that
annihilation awaits us, and that we are
destined to be blotted from the earth
Fear sits on every face and dread on
every heart. We work, not in the
shadow, but in the very face of death
We meet him on every hand and at
every moment in the names of his VIC
tins and in the desolation he has
spread about us. Hope, we have none.
We despair of any relief, but, we are
nerved for the end. We pray blessings
upon the generous who have helped us
in all the States; we pray for the safety
of those who have come among us to
nurse the sick and minister to the dy-
ing, and we ask that the names of the
women and the men who have laid
down their lives for us shall be handed
down forever as among the brightest
and the best of earth"