Chariton courier. (Keytesville, Chariton County, Mo.) 1878-current, 1878-10-26
THE GREAT PLAGUE IN LONDON

The great plague of London In 1865
forms ciift.ar in the history of diseases.
1t seemed to spend its fury in one fierce
effort. 1t was to come no more. Cen
turies have passed, and still the fatal
scourge that ragged w,thont limit, with
out resistance, almost to the destruction
of the population of vast capital, has
wholly vanished before some inscruta-
BILE law, some change of habits, inn
provement in morals and manners.
Often before 1865 it had prevailed in
London and England almost with
Oriental severity, and had slowly made
its way over Western Europe, deYour-
ing a generation in its passage. 1t be-
gan usually in Egypt and syria, reach
ed Constantinople, overran the Cont
nent, desolated Amsterdam and Paris,
covered England with disnlay. 1t is
curious 70 notice how all these violent
and loathsome diseases are born and
nourished in the East, ride slowly west
ward, decimate, destroy, are the poison
ous gifts of a decaying civilization.
The Black Death in 134S is the most
fearful of ali. 1t osine from the East
over medieval Europe, staying whole
cities full of people, laying waste and
silent the open country, knocking at the
cottage and the palace gate. The hu-
man race, in the words of the chroni-
Elets; seemed abodt to disappear; cities
as large as New Orleans were nearly de-
serted; districts of fertile country fairer
than Mississippi we're tenanted once
more by wild beasts. Half the people
of Europe, it was estimated, died. 1t
was as if 100000 of the inhabitants of
Boston had perished in a few months,
100000 in New York. We have
nothing in modern times &c approach
the violence of these ancient plaques, /,
men have multiplied, disease diminishes.
1t is not difficult to fancy the horror
that settled upon the survivors, the ter
rors of the lonely cities, the forsaken
streets, the depopulated, desolate coun-
try; the sudden outbreaks of fierce re-
lisiotis madness that often followed /;
the fageliants, white penitents, fanatics,
contrition, despair; OF the wild revelry
that sometimes sprung up in its midst,
the shouts of riotous merriment min
Cling witk gfoatis end tears.
1t was plague of this kind that came
upon London in 1865; so fearful that Il
-ould only seem judgment from
above. So 1t appeared to the rigid
Puritans and republicans who five years
before had welcomed back Charles IL
and his Cavaliers with dissembled glad
ness, with a compromise with evil they
could never atone for. London had been
Puritan city, strict in outward morals,
rigid in doctrine, industrious, gloomy !;
the return of the Cavaliers had filled it
with foreign vices, frivolous lightness,
gross impurity. The King had brought
with him a gay, mad, miserable train !;
every thing rational was neglected; he
was the Cornus of a '' rabble rout, and
many, with Milton or Defoe, looked up
on the plague as the Judgment of heaven
upon the misdeeds of their rulers. Lon
don in the winter and spring of 1664-65
was crowded with people; in the West
End the wealthy and noble gathered
around Westminster and Whitehall, in
the city and the eastern suburbs
trade had revived. The river was full
of ships, the streets filled with an over
| flowing tide of life. Defoe has painted
with his realistic pen the slow rise of
the pestilence, the first alarm, the hopes,
the fears, the progress of the scourge
secretly and then openly, the fight OF
the citizens, the horrid gloom, the
death cries, the yawning graves, crime,
woe, the decline of the pestilence, the
boundless Joy of the survivors, the re-
turn of theimpenitent court. For long
time it had been known in London that
the plague had been raging on the Con-
tinent. brought from the East by some
unlucky trader; but in the winter OF
1864 only few cases had been noticed
in the capital, yet these were enough to
excite deep anxiety. Men watched
the reports of the deaths in the differ
ent parishes eagerly. "We had no such
thing as printed newspapers in those
days." says Defoe, 'to spread rumors
and reports of things, and improve
them" But the rumor of the approach
of the disease had already reached Lon
don. In November two men, said to
be Frenchmen, died in Drury Lane; the
physicians declared they had died of the
plague; and the weekly bill of mortali-
ty was printed: "Plague, 2; parishes
infected, - Another died in Decem
Der. For six weeks no other death oc
Cured then in February one happen
ed. 1t was noticed, however, that the
number of deaths around St. Giles's had
greatly increased it was whispered that
cared to venture through Drury Lane
But the winter came on SHARP
and bleak, and seemed to kill the dis
ease, as is it could only flourish in tht
hot air of summer. 1t disappeared
wholly. 1t revived in May-a cool
pleasant month; it fingered in the filtt
and squalor of st. Giles's, and in Jur,
broke into fearful activity. The pesti
lence had come; the citizens who wer'
able closed their houses, shops, and fled
The court had gone to Oxford; TO
weeks the streets were filed with throng
of people moving to the country ol
horseback, on foot, carrying their fur
niture, goods, wares, the rich and poo
mingled in a common calamity.
But many were forced to stay, and oil
these the pestilence fell with unaccount
adle fury. The hot weather of Jul,
reused it to virulence; in August it wa
fearful; in September the horrors tolt
of it surpass belief. 1t first appeare,
with tumor on the breast or under tn
arm, hard, painful, horrible-the plague
spot. The physicians, when they sav
the fearful omen, would cry, "Lift N
your eyes to God!" in a few hours
was fatal Sometimes the patients sanl
under raging fever, headache; some
times faded away in swift decline, al
! most painless; some seemed to die
fright; some hanged themselves to os
cape it; some were seized in the streets
and died before they could reach thei
own doors. In September 5000 person
died weekly, and 60, 900, it was believed
were infected. The Lord Mayor of tn
city, his Sheriffs and Aldermen, remain
ed bravely at their post; they did a!
that man could do. They ordered
when too late, the streets t
, be purified; funerals-or rathe
burials-were only to be performed d
, night; there was to be no tolling {